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Topic Last Updated on 11-07-2024
South American Beans
Post topic: Interesting story about chocolate.
Lets dive into the Journey of Chocolate: From Ancient Mesoamerica to Global Delight.
The name “chocolate” comes from the Nahuatl word xocoatl, meaning “bitter water.” The word “cocoa” (kakawa) also appeared in the language of the Olmec civilization in about 1000 BCE. The Mayans and Aztecs cultivated cocoa beans in the 3rd century CE, and they were initially used in religious rites and ceremonies.
Cocoa, or the chocolate tree, grows in a humid tropical climate within 20 degrees of both sides of the equator. Each pod contains 30–50 seeds used as the raw material for making cocoa and chocolate. For cocoa beans to turn into proper chocolate, they need to undergo lengthy and complicated processing. If you pick the fruits of a cocoa tree from a branch and try them, you probably won’t like the bitter taste, which is not even close to the chocolate flavor you know and love. Sugar, sweeteners, milk, and other ingredients added to different sorts of chocolate only serve to disguise the bitter taste of cocoa beans.
From Tree to Bar
First comes first: the cocoa tree’s pods are fermented, a process which must be started within 24 to 48 hours after their opening. Fermentation usually lasts 5 to 7 days. The pods are dumped in heaps into special boxes, where microorganisms do their work. Yeast converts the carbohydrates contained in the pod pulp into ethanol. Then, the bacteria oxidize the alcohol first to acetic acid and then to carbon dioxide and water, and the energy released during the fermentation process raises the temperature of the raw material and destroys the pulp. Acetic acid decomposes the cellular walls of the beans, then the proteins in the composition break down into individual amino acids and oxidize. As a result, the beans darken. That’s when volatile flavoring substances, molecules that give chocolate its usual taste and aroma, begin to form.
COCOA FRUIT
FERMENTATION
When fermentation is over, the beans are cleaned, sorted by size, and roasted. In the process of roasting, the vinegar flavor disappears, the rind becomes brittle and the beans darken further. Finally, a mixture of volatile “chocolate” molecules is formed. After roasting, the bean kernels are peeled, ground, and thickened into the cocoa liquor, which can now be used to make desserts. Sometimes liquor is divided into two fractions — cocoa butter, rich in fats, and solid cocoa powder.
DRYING
ROASTING
GRINDING
When chocolate is produced, cocoa butter is added to cocoa liquor, with the ratio of butter and liquor determined by the chocolate type. Other ingredients are added during mixing: sugar, vanilla, milk powder, extra fats, and other flavors. The resulting mixture is much tastier than raw cocoa beans, but sometimes it still crunches between your teeth.
PRODUCTION OF INTERMEDIATE SUBSTANCES
The mixture is slowly stirred at an elevated temperature — the longer the mixing, the softer and more homogeneous the chocolate becomes. Depending on the chocolate type, this process can last from 4 to 72 hours.
TEMPERING
CHOCOLATE
We are almost there! Now, the bars need to be shaped and textured. The semi-liquid chocolate mass is “hardened” by cooling it down. The temperature at which such solidification takes place is very important for the properties of the future bars. An error at this stage may result in the chocolate melting in your hands instead of your mouth, or, on the contrary, it may turn out too hard. Cocoa butter contains several types of fatty acids, which, when cooled and solidified, should form a single mass. The task is complicated by the fact that these fatty acids — oleic, stearic, and palmitic — harden at different temperatures. If the hardening conditions aren’t calibrated correctly, these acids may crystallize separately, and the chocolate’s texture won’t be uniform.
You’ve probably noticed a thin, greyish-white coating on some chocolate bars before. “Chocolate engineers” say that, in such cases, the chocolate has started to “bloom.” There are two fundamentally different types of this coating. The first one is called sugar bloom, which forms due to water condensation on the chocolate surface, when, for example, it has been stored in the refrigerator. The sugar contained in chocolate gets dissolved in these water droplets, and when they evaporate, it stays on the surface in the form of white crystals.
Fat bloom
The second type is fat bloom. It occurs when small globules of butter in the chocolate merge into larger droplets and sweat out to the surface. As a result, an oily grey film is formed on the bar. Fat bloom may be triggered by improper cooling of the chocolate at the factory, improper storage conditions (excessive temperature), or when incompatible fats have been added to the cocoa butter at the production stage. Chocolate with fatty or sugar bloom may soil your hands with grease or crunch as you chew it, respectively. Otherwise, there’s no danger in eating it.
“Chocolate” Happiness
Choco is often called the “elixir of happiness” or the “elixir of pleasure,” and this is not just an advertising or marketing ploy. Chocolate contains chemical compounds that stimulate the work of our brain, most often elevating our mood and energy level.
Surge of energy
THEOBROMINE
Theobromine is a vegetable alkaloid, chemically similar to caffeine. It is also found in tea and coffee, but cocoa and chocolate contain the highest concentrations. Despite the name, there is no bromine in theobromine — the substance is named after the chocolate tree (Theobroma cacao). Theobromine affects the human brain in much the same way as caffeine (by the way, it is also found in chocolate). That is why we feel a surge of energy when we eat chocolate, but we must not forget that theobromine and caffeine are deadly for our pets.
The smaller our four-legged friend, the more damage a piece of chocolate can do: at first, the animal just gets agitated and excited, but there is a risk of convulsions or even heart attack at a later stage.
