Chocolate, Food of the Gods

Pre-Columbian drinking vessel with a monkey smoking a cigarette
and holding a cacao pod. (Boston Fine Arts)

When the early Spanish explorers in Mexico encountered chocolate in the 15th century they were impressed. As a beverage, chocolate soon became widely popular in Europe. Later, in the 18th century, it was given the name Theobroma: “Food of the gods.” In the 19th century, methods were developed for the manufacturing of chocolate candy and for its incorporation it in baked goods. Today, chocolate is widely popular in many parts of the world, but there’s a dark side: it grows in the tropics, where poverty, child labor, and even slavery are problems. 

Much has been written about the history of chocolate and about today’s humanitarian considerations of chocolate production. Later this week, I’ll be writing about the current problems with chocolate and agriculture. In that post, I’ll summarize how climate change is leading to smaller crops and thus to skyrocketing prices. Today, I want to look at the steps needed to start with raw cocoa beans and end up with a kiss (Hershey’s, of course).

Jean-Étienne Liotard, "The Chocolate Girl," 1745

A cup of cocoa at home.

Where does chocolate come from?

Cocoa pods growing on a farm in Costa Rica. (source)

Today, I want to take a look at how the cocoa beans — cultivated mainly by impoverished third-world farmers —are processed before the end products of this processing reach us, the first-world consumers. Cocoa grows only within 20 degrees of the equator: a region currently feeling a severe impact from climate change. Chocolate growers in Africa and Central America have been affected by both climate change and political events. Here’s more about how the cocoa beans from these pods are turned into the products we love. 

A farmer in the Democratic Republic of the Congo opens a cocoa pod. (source)

Once the cocoa beans have been harvested and the beans removed from the pods, they require many steps to become the delicious food that a large number of people love:

“The chocolate production process consists of fermentation, drying, roasting, grinding of cocoa beans, mixing of all ingredients (cocoa mass, sugar, cocoa butter, emulsifiers, aroma, and milk components if needed), conching, and tempering. Major chemical reactions occur during fermentation, drying, roasting of cocoa beans, and conching of chocolate mass. These reactions are the most important for flavor and aroma development.” (source)

Fermentation takes place soon after harvest:

• “There are multiple ways to ferment cocoa beans. Cocoa fermentation techniques include placing the extracted pulp on mats or in buckets to dry. Sometimes banana leaves or reeds lay on top of them to help protect them. By leaving them to ferment, the alcohol in the beans changes to acetic or lactic acid.” (Source: the Anarchy Chocolate Store)

Drying cocoa beans (source)

Drying: The fermented beans are spread on boards and dried in the sun for five to ten days. Like the fermentation, this generally takes place in a processing plant near the chocolate-growing plantations. After grinding, the beans are sorted by quality and size.

Grinding results in production of chocolate liquor, containing the cocoa butter and cocoa from the bean.

A conching machine: one of several designs for this procedure.
The earliest conching machines, invented in 1879, were shaped like a conch shell. (source)

Mixing, conching, and tempering. These steps are usually done by a chocolate company such as Hershey or smaller outfits, in facilities near the final production factory. Each processor has their own methods, which produce distinctive flavors and quality of the final product. Without conching and tempering, chocolate bars would be crumbly and show white streaks; these steps are essential for modern candy-making.

• Conching: “The chocolate liquor is placed in a conching machine, a large mixer with heavy, grinding stones. As the machine works, it kneads, heats, and aerates the chocolate. This process helps to develop the flavour of the chocolate, reduce acidity, and evaporate unwanted flavors. The process can last from a few hours to several days depending on the desired quality and characteristics of the chocolate.” 

• Tempering: “After conching, the chocolate is tempered. During tempering, the chocolate is carefully heated, then cooled, then slightly reheated. This manipulation of temperature helps to align the fat crystals in the chocolate, ensuring a smooth texture, glossy appearance, and a nice ‘snap’ when broken. Untempered chocolate can have a grainy texture and a dull appearance.” (Source: Whitaker’s Chocolate)

Technically: “In the tempering process, melted chocolate is first cooled, causing the fatty acid crystals to form nuclei around which the other fatty acids will crystallize. Once the crystals connect, the temperature is then raised to keep them from solidifying.” (source)

The final steps go from the tempered chocolate to manufacturing end-products.

Kisses on the production line at the Hershey Chocolate Factory. (source)

The global politics of chocolate production, trade, and price setting, which affects every step from growers to consumers, is very complex. A long Oxfam report was published this week titled “The Living Income Differential for cocoa: futures markets and price setting in an unequal value chain.” From the report:

“The current cocoa trading system works well if you are a chocolate company that doesn’t want to take responsibility for the lives and livelihoods of the people producing the raw materials. It also works well for you if you’re a trader with massive capital assets – which allows you to hedge your cocoa and speculate on the futures market. It’s also a great system when you’re a speculator with good intel. It’s not a great system when you’re a cocoa producer. We should therefore not be surprised that an increasing number of farmers in Côte d’Ivoire and Ghana are selling their lands, often for goldmining and thereby continuing the vicious cycle of exploitation and natural degradation.” (link)

More on the global situation with chocolate and chocolate prices will be in my end-of-month post later this week.

Blog post © 2024 mae sander. Photos as credited.