The journey from cocoa tree to chocolate

In five steps:

1. Cocoa fruits grow on the cocoa tree, which hides cocoa beans inside cocoa fruit.
2. Cocoa beans are then dried on air and fermented.
3. Then beans are roasted, grinded, and pressed. These processes produce cocoa mass, cocoa butter and cocoa powder.
4. Depending on the type of chocolate - dark, milk, white or ruby - cocoa mass, cocoa butter, sugar milk, and other ingredients are mixed together followed by a special conching process, which already produces chocolate and eliminates most of the typical bitter taste out of cocoa.
5. Chocolate tempering, i.e. heating and cooling it to a specific temperature for a specific amount of time causes regular and stable crystals to form in chocolate (the temperature depends on the type of chocolate and the percentage of cocoa in it). This process gives the chocolate its shiny look and its distinctive ”click” sound when you break it.
6. Yum, yum, yum… this additional step comes spontaneously and doesn’t require any special instructions. ;)

Take a look around the chocolate store