Have you ever wondered where chocolate comes from? The video above shows just how many steps go into making a chocolate bar, at least in this particular region in Mexico — from harvesting the cacao pods to tempering the chocolate and molding the final product.

The cacao beans have a fruity taste, according to the video, which is likely due to the cacao pulp (the cacao pod is a fruit and, like most fruits, the pulp is what’s sweet, not the seeds). The beans must be fermented for up to a week before they take on the more familiar chocolate flavor.

They’re then sun dried for four days (and rotated often), roasted and winnowed, which means they have their outer skin or shell removed. At this point only the cacao nibs (which are an antioxidant-rich superfood) remain.
The cacao nibs are then put into an oil press to extract cocoa butter, which is ground, typically along with sugar, for eight hours, then tempered and molded.

What’s the Difference Between Cacao and Cocoa?

Cacao refers to the plant, a small evergreen tree of the species Theobroma cacao, which is cultivated for its seeds, also known as cacao beans or cocoa beans. The term “chocolate” refers to the solid food or candy made from a preparation of cacao seeds (typically roasted).

If the cacao seeds are not roasted, then you have “raw chocolate,” which is also typically sweetened. Cocoa, on the other hand, refers to the powder made from roasted, husked and ground cacao seeds, from which most of the fat has been removed.

There Are Different Methods of Chocolate Production

Chocolate production in different regions may vary somewhat from the video above, although the basic steps remain mostly the same. For instance, while all cacao beans are dried, some are sun dried and some are artificially dried. ¹

” … yeasts grow on the pulp surrounding the beans. Insects, such as the Drosophila melanogaster or vinegar-fly, are probably responsible for the transfer of micro-organisms to the heaps of beans. The yeasts convert the sugars in the pulp surrounding the beans to ethanol.

Bacteria then start to oxidize the ethanol to acetic acid and then to carbon dioxide and water, producing more heat and raising the temperature. The pulp starts to break down and drain away during the second day.”

The fermentation process actually kills the cacao beans around the second day. The death of the bean causes chemical changes (including enzyme activity, oxidation and breakdown of proteins into amino acids) that lead to the development of the chocolate flavor and color.²