You would think that something that produces the delicious chocolate would be found all over the world and would be easy to cultivate. But, the fact of the matter is that cocoa and its cultivation is not an easy matter. It needs the right kind of soil, climate etc. for it to be cultivated in abundance.

The cacao tree is a native of South America. Cacao can be grown only in tropical climates. It has to be shielded from wind and drought. The rainfall can be high or low but it has to be distributed uniformly.

The cacao tree isn’t a huge tree maybe a little taller than an apple tree. The maximum height is twenty feet. We harvest the seeds from the fruits that the cacoa tree bears. The seeds are what is used to produce chocolate. The tree start to bear fruit at about 5 years old. The fruits do not actually hang from the branches, but rather they almost shoot out directly from the base of the trunk. This is because the pods are so heavy that the branches will not able to hold them. The flowers of a cacao tree are so small that unless you are looking for it you are liable to miss it. They are usually pink or yellow in color. They look as though they are made from wax and generally have no smell. The buds are the size of rice grains. The bud takes at least six months to mature into a fruit.

tags: chocolate, cacao cultivation, cacao beans, cacao tree

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Everyone knows that chocolate is made from cocoa. In fact for most people chocolate and cocoa are synonymous. Chocolate is made from the fruit of the cacao tree. This tree is a native of South America. The ancient South Americans found it more useful to use the cocoa seeds as a sort of currency than use it for making chocolate.

So, how do you get chocolate from the cocoa seeds? The cocoa beans undergo a lot of processing before they are in the form that we recognize as chocolate. First of all they are fermented. Next, they are sun dried and bagged before being exported. To develop the distinctive flavor of chocolate, the cocoa beans are sorted, cleaned and roasted. These roasted beans are then shelled and grounded. The intense heat of the grinding process melts the fat in the cocoa beans resulting in a fatty material with a bitter taste called the chocolate liquor. From this liquor cocoa butter or yellow fat is separated leaving behind a solid cake. This is then ground and sifted to manufacture cocoa powder.

To make the chocolate that you get in the market, sugar, additional fat and milk and other things depending on the type of chocolate that is required. The fat that is usually added to the chocolate is cocoa butter which gives it the melting sensation. Most countries including US permit only this fat to be added to the chocolate but some countries also permit the addition of vegetable fat.

tags: chocolate, cocoa, sugar, milk, chocolate liquor

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