The Story of Chocolate
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Believe it or not, chocolate does not come from a box. The story of chocolate begins in the rain forest where the cacao tree grows. Cacao beans grow in pods on cacao trees.
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Ripe cacao pods are picked by hand. The pods are cut off the cacao tree and carefully split open. Inside the cacao pod, the beans are protected by fleshy white pulp. The pulp has to be scraped from the beans before the chocolate can be made.
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Cacao pods grow up to 12 inches long and five inches around. The pods grow directly from the tree's branches and trunk. A cacao tree grows about 50 pods, 2 times a year.
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The pod takes five to six months to ripen and change color from green to red, orange or yellow. Inside each pod are about 30 beans. The seeds are dried from 3 to 4 days and then sent to the factory.
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At the factory, the cocoa beans are cleaned and roasted at a high temperature. This makes the shells dry and brittle. The shells are then cracked open, and the nibs of the bean are taken out.
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The beans are ground into a paste and then mixed with other ingredients. This paste is mixed with milk, sugar, and vanilla to make chocolate.
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Milk chocolate is made by mixing this paste with cocoa butter, sugar and milk. White chocolate is made of cocoa butter, milk, sugar, and other flavorings. White chocolate is not really white chocolate, because it doesn't have any of the chocolate paste from the nibs.
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This mixture is then heated up to make a liquid. The liquid chocolate is poured into molds. Then the chocolate is cooled off so that it will harden. Finally, it is wrapped and ready to eat!
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