History

Cocoa, from which chocolate is created, is said to have originated in the Amazon at least 4,000 years ago.

Chocolate was used by the Maya Culture, as early as the Sixth Century AD. Maya called the cocoa tree cacahuaquchtl "tree," and the word chocolate comes from the Maya word “xocoatl” which means bitter water brewed from cacao beans. The Latin name for the cacao tree, Theobroma cacao, means "food of the gods.“

The first recorded evidence of chocolate as a food product goes back to Pre-Columbian Mexico. The Mayans and Aztecs were known to make a drink called "Xocoatll from the beans of the cocoa tree.

The Maya Indians and the Aztecs recognized the value of cocoa beans - both as an ingredient for their special 'chocolate' drink and as currency for hundreds of years before cocoa was brought to Europe.

In 1847, Fry & Sons in England introduced the first "eating chocolate," but did not attract much attention due to its bitter taste. In 1874, Daniel Peter, a famed Swiss chocolatier, experimented with various mixtures in an effort to balance chocolates rough flavor, and eventually stumbled upon that abundant product -- milk. This changed everything and chocolate's acceptance after that was quick and enthusiastic.

The creation of the first modern chocolate bar is credited to Joseph Fry, who in 1847 discovered that he could make a moldable chocolate paste by adding melted cacao butter back into Dutch cocoa.

Some Interesting Chocolate Facts

I. The first recorded “Death by Chocolate” case occurred in the 17th Century in Chiapas, Mexico.

II. The biggest bar of chocolate ever made was created in 2000 and weighed 5,000 pounds in Turin city in Italy.

III. Americans eat an average of 22 pounds of candy each year, or approximately 2.8 billion pounds yearly.

IV. While the US produces the most chocolate and consume the most pounds every year, the Swiss consume the most per capita, followed closely by the English.

V. Chocolate manufacturers currently use 40% of the world’s almonds and 20% of the world’s peanuts.

VI. Christopher Columbus is believed to be the first to bring cocoa beans to Europe. On his fourth visit to the 'New World' he discovered cocoa beans on August 15, 1502

Growing Regions: Worldwide cacao production is disbursed among the major cocoa producing countries as shown below:

Cacao is also grown in Sri Lanka, parts of India, Venezuela, Belize, Costa Rica, Dominican Republic, Madagascar, Peru, Colombia, Guatemala, Hawaii, Mexico, Fiji and other countries clustered near the equator.

Growing Conditions: The trees flourish in the shade of rainforests where they gain protection from the wind in rich, well-drained soil. The climate is one of high humidity, usually 100% during the day and 70-80% at night. The cacao prefers a constant but moderate temperature of 77 degrees at all times, and ample rainfall of 40-80 inches per year is preferableCacao Tree: The trees can grow to be 100 years or more, but commercial production stops after 25 yrs. The shiny green leaves spring from branches on a trunk that grows up to 30 ft tall. The cacao flowers continuously once it has matured, with orchid-like white & pink blossoms growing directly from tree trunk. Of the thousands of blossoms approximately 100 will become mature pods, which will also grow directly from the trunk of the tree.The cacao tree is an evergreen found in over 50 tropical countries, and estimated to be grown by 2 million to 2.5 million producers, 90% of whom are small-scale farmers with 12 acres or less

Other Facts: Cacao trees grow best in the geographic band that is 15-20 degrees north or south of Equator in West Africa, Central and South America and parts of Asia.

Main manufacturers of chocolate across the world : The chocolate industry, a steadily growing, $50 billion-a-year worldwide business centered on the sale and consumption of chocolate, is prevalent on five out of seven continents. Europe accounts for 45% of the world's chocolate revenue

Company Net Sales 2013 (US$ millions)

Mars Inc (USA) 17,640.00Mondelēz International Inc (USA) 14,862.00Nestlé SA (Switzerland) 11,760.00Meiji Holdings Co Ltd (Japan) 11,742.00Ferrero Group (Italy) 10,900.00Hershey Foods Corp (USA) 7,043.00Arcor (Argentina) 3,700.00

Chocoladenfabriken Lindt & Sprüngli AG (Switzerland) 3,149.00

Ezaki Glico Co Ltd (Japan) 3,018.00Yildiz Holding (Turkey) 2,500.00

Some of the famous brands are

Chocolate is made from the fruit of the cacao tree (Theobroma cacao).

The Cocoa fruit grows on the branches as well as the trunk of the tree.

Cocoa trees take five to eight years to mature. One mature cocoa tree can be expected to yield about five pounds of chocolate per year.

The pods usually mature after 5 months of growth, sporting various colors, including gold, crimson and purple. The pods are filled with a sweet, white or rosy colored pulp and contain approximately 50 beans, all perfectly aligned in rows like corn.

1. Fermenting: Once the cacao beans have been removed from the pods, white pulp are removed from the beans and piled high, to promote fermentation.

Fermenting piles are often covered with banana leaves or wooden boxes and stirred periodically to promote aeration and fermentation.  After a day, micro-organisms, in particular yeasts, begin to grow on the beans.  The yeast converts the sugar of the pulp into ethanol, and the bacteria then oxidizes the ethanol, causing the temperature of the pile to rise and the beans to turn brown.

They are for a period up to six days to remove the mucilage, stop the bean from germinating, and to begin flavor development.

When fermentation is complete, drying is done traditionally by spreading the beans out on the ground or a table and allowing the sun to do the work.  More modern techniques include drying rooms and heated tables where temperatures can be strictly controlled. 

The beans should be dried slowly to allow completion of the chemical reactions that began in fermentation, but not so slowly that mounds develop. Drying usually takes one to two weeks.

2. Drying:

3. Roasting & winnowing : The beans are roasted to develop the characteristic chocolate flavor. They are roasted in large rotary cylinders.

Next, the beans are roasted to darken the color and to further bring out the flavor characteristics of the cacao. The beans can be roasted at different temperatures and for different lengths of time, depending on different variables such as humidity, size of the beans, and the desired flavor.

After roasting, the beans are "winnowed" to brake into pieces and remove the shells from around the bean, leaving only the roasted cocoa nib, which is the key ingredient for making chocolate.

4. Grinding, mixing and rolling

Thereafter cocoa nibs grounded in the triple mill to a fineness of between 25 μ and 30 μ. 150 kg of small ceramic balls in the ball mill further reduce the texture of the cacao mass to a fineness of between 15 μ and 20 μ.

Different ingredients according to recipes are mixed in the kneading machine and kneaded for chocolate.

The kneaded mass passes through the pre-refiner to the 5-roll refiner grinding the mass to a fineness of 16 μ for smoothness.

The next process, conching, further develops the flavor and texture by promoting chemical transformations in the chocolate.  Conching is a process of kneading and agitating the chocolate, which can be completed in as little as 5 hours at the more commercial facilities, but can take as long as 3 days at the more artisan manufacturers. 

 As a final stage before molding, the mixture is tempered by a series of heating, cooling and reheating steps. This prevents chocolate bloom by realigning the cacao butter crystal formations.  The chocolate is now ready to be molded as a whole bar or used to enrobe fillings.

5. Conching & finishing

Chocolate is then "tempered" through a slow, stepped decrease in temperature. During this process, the chocolate is cooled and then warmed, then cooled further and warmed once again, and so on until it reaches the correct temperature, creating an even crystallization of the ingredients throughout the chocolate. If done well, tempering is what gives the chocolate its smooth texture and snap when broken in two.

After the chocolate is properly tempered, it is ready for additional ingredient such as almonds, coffee beans, or sea salt. The chocolate is then poured into molds to form shape of the bar. The chocolate cools until it becomes solid and is then removed from the molds as chocolate bars. Once the bars are cooled, they are wrapped in their inner wrapper to keep the chocolate fresh for 12-24 months. They are then labeled, packed in cases and stacked on pallets ready to be shipped to and to be eaten!

6. Tempering, Molding and packing

Thank you,Muhammad Saeed Shahbhaiwala.