Chocolate is a product of the fruit of the cacao tree. The fruits grow off the main trunk of the tree as pods, similar in size to a deflated football. The trees can grow anywhere from 25 to 50 feet tall. Once harvested, each pod is cut open to reveal a milky white or pastel-hued pulp, with loads of beans—20 to 50 per pod—embedded. Split apart, cacao pods have characteristics similar to a melon but with much larger seeds (cacao beans) and little flesh. The vast majority of cacao trees grow within rain forests where the climate is very warm and humid, roughly 20 degrees north and south of the equator.
During the first 2 to 3 years of their lives, the fragile cacao tree seedlings must be sheltered from the strong, direct sunshine of the tropics, hence the need to preserve the shade-bearing foliage of the rain forests for chocolate producers. Mature cacao trees that provide shade, thereby protecting the younger trees, are called “cacao mothers.” Tropical food products, like chocolate and coffee grown under these conditions, are often labeled “shade-grown”—a designation given to foliage that is cultivated under the canopy of the rain forest.
However, due to the deforestation of the rain forest, banana leaves often need to be layered over cacao seedlings to provide the necessary shady environment for the young and delicate plants. Although the cacao pods are tough, the trees themselves, both young and mature, are susceptible to many diseases and pests. Once the trees are mature and begin to bear fruit, when they are 5 to 8 years old, they can handle direct sunlight without difficulty and the trees become far more tolerant of less-than-ideal growing conditions and pest exposure, while also developing greater resistance to damage.
There are 3 main varieties of cacao, although due to naturally occurring cross-pollination and genetic mutation, many varieties share characteristics with other strains. This makes absolute positive identification difficult. Many seedlings, for example, are transported great distances by birds (in their droppings), reseeding other areas with different varieties of cacao. Other cross-pollinating is done by ants, midges, and aphids. And cross-hybridizing, done by humans to promote more vigorous and hardy cacao trees, has contributed to making definitive identification perplexing.
This can make the significance of chocolate labeled as “estate-grown” somewhat meaningless; unless a specific variety of bean is used in the chocolate and stated on the label, one estate can cultivate several different varieties of cacao. And even in cases where the chocolate label claims one particular variety of cacao bean, tastes vary due to the method of fermentation as well as subsequent roasting time and temperature.
FORESTERO
Forestero is by far the most common and prolific cacao, due to its hardiness and resistance to diseases and pests. Stout and tannic forestero beans are fermented for about a week to mellow them, a relatively long period of time. Grown primarily in Africa, forestero beans are the workhorses of the chocolate world. Africa accounts for about 70% of the world’s production of cacao. Questionable working conditions on the Ivory Coast have caused some chocolate makers to become more conscientious when selecting the origin of their cacao.
Although many lesser-quality chocolates are made from forestero beans, skilled chocolate makers often blend forestero beans along with trinitarios and criollos to provide balance and give the chocolate a longer, more complex finish and depth.
CRIOLLO
Criollo beans are considered the highest grade and are used for top-quality chocolate blends and many single-bean chocolates. The elongated criollo pod is low yielding and vulnerable to disease, making the beans far more costly than forestero beans. There are few true criollo beans available due to their vulnerability. Many have been cross-pollinated or hybridized. The majority of fruity and aromatic criollo beans are harvested in Venezuela; the rest come from Indonesia and Madagascar. They are low in astringency and require less fermentation than harsher beans, about 3 days of fermentation as opposed to up to 7 days for forestero beans. Criollo beans account for only about 5% of the total world production of cacao.
TRINITARIO
Trinitario cacao is a hybrid of forestero and criollo, created on the island of Trinidad. Trinitario cacao was developed to be less resistant to disease than criollo beans, like forestero beans, but to possess many of the same fruity qualities as the sought-after criollo. The best trinitario beans are from Java and, of course, Trinidad.
You should not necessarily think that chocolate brands that promote the use of “only criollo beans” in their chocolate are necessarily better than others. Although criollo beans are often of high quality, I know several conscientious chocolate makers who blend various trinitario and forestero beans to achieve their particular flavor balance. I’ve tasted other excellent chocolate blends and have come to the conclusion that many of my favorite chocolates use a combination of several cacaos: criollo for its lovely floral notes and forestero for longer chocolate finish, or trinitario beans, which have the characteristics of both criollo and forestero, for a perfect balance of flavors.
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The Best Cacao Bean in the World?
One of the most magnificent chocolates that I’ve encountered was made from a true criollo bean, Ocumare, from Chocovic, in the Catalan region of Spain, outside Barcelona. The deep, dark bar of Ocumare chocolate was handed to me by Katrina Markoff of Vosges Haut-Chocolate and contained approximately 71% Ocumare cacao. This extraordinary and exotic chocolate was sharp and direct at first bite—and fabulously intense. The flavor continued to develop while I let it dissolve in my mouth, first slightly acidic, then mellowing to lush and earthy. The difficult-to-harvest Ocumare bean is rare and expensive due to the low-yielding nature of the tree. It is a totally engrossing chocolate experience and just about every chocolate expert I know agrees that Ocumare is the most extraordinary cacao. An Ocumare chocolate is also created and distributed by El Rey.
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HARVESTING, FERMENTING, AND SUN-DRYING
Harvesting of the cacao pods is quite difficult. Since the trees are too fragile to allow the workers to climb, the pods must be harvested at ground level. Because the pickers are down on the ground, they must be skilled in their judgment, using their expertise to peer up from far below to determine which cacao pods are just ripe for picking. Each pod is carefully removed from the trees using tumnadores, wielded by the skilled pickers who go through the forests and deftly slice the pods from the trees, being careful not to damage the fragile bark and harm the tree. Tumadores are special, machete-like “cacao blades” mounted on long handles.
Once the pods are harvested, they’re sliced open, revealing light-colored beans surrounded by a creamy white, pastel pink, or soft violet–hued pulp. Natives make a drink from this pulp (you can sometimes find it in cans in Latin markets), or it is drained away during the fermentation process. The fermentation of the beans is the first, and considered by many to be the most important, part of the entire chocolate-making process that determines the final taste and flavor of the beans, and consequently, the finished chocolate. Fermentation takes place in pits dug in the earth or in wooden crates. Once heaped into the pits or crates, the cacao beans and their gluey pulp are covered with banana leaves and left to ferment. Fermentation turns the sugars into acids and changes the color of the beans from a pale color to a rich, deep brown. To save money, some processors dry their beans over an open fire, which gives the cacao a charred, almost oily, resinous flavor that is hard to disguise and undesirable in premium chocolate.
Once fermented, the beans are sun-dried, although in particularly moist climates, the beans are sometimes dried using heaters to prevent mold growth. During the drying process, the beans lose most of their moisture. As the beans are laid out to dry, they are manually raked and turned daily to ensure even drying.
Sun-drying takes about a week, and the growers use this opportunity to pick through and remove any foreign matter from the beans. Once dried, the beans are packed into canvas or woven polypropylene sacks for shipping. Most beans are sold on the world commodities market, the prices varying depending on quality and supply and demand. Although most cacao beans are shipped abroad, in Ghana, Omanhene dark milk chocolate is produced in the African community where the beans are grown. Similarly, El Rey chocolate is made in Venezuela, where all of their beans are grown.
ROASTING AND PROCESSING
Once cacao beans arrive at factories, they are unloaded and sorted for foreign objects. (Sometimes shoes, knives, rocks, and other objects are found.) Then the cacao beans are carefully roasted to a temperature between 210°F and 290°F (100°C and 145°C). After they’re roasted, they’re expelled from the hot roaster and cooled quickly. Next they are passed through a winnower, which cracks the dusky outer shells from the beans and blows them away. The meaty, valuable inner bean is crushed into smaller pieces, known as “nibs,” to be made into chocolate.
Cacao nibs are high in fat, about 50 percent. They’re crushed into a paste, using granite stones or heavy-duty metal, a process that can take several hours or several days. During this time, the fatty nibs are continuously rolled and ground, generating heat and releasing the cocoa fat, which helps them liquefy until a smooth paste is formed. This paste is called “chocolate liquor,” although it contains no alcohol. The process is called “conching.” Unsweetened or bitter chocolate is referred to as pure chocolate liquor and is mostly sold in bars for baking. Unlike bittersweet or semisweet chocolate, no cocoa butter is added to unsweetened chocolate so it isn’t very fluid when melted and should not be used in recipes when bittersweet or semisweet chocolate is called for.
In general, the longer the conching, the better the chocolate. As the cacao paste is kneaded smooth, cocoa butter and coarse sugar are blended in (the large sugar crystals help provide abrasion to smooth the rough cacao nibs) to make a chocolate that is called bittersweet or semisweet. Milk chocolate is made by kneading in dried milk solids or milk powder, in addition to the cacao butter and sugar, during the blending process.
The Essence of Chocolate
When cacao beans are ground into chocolate, the beans, which are quite fatty, become warmed up by the heat naturally produced by the pulverizing action of the rollers. Some of the “top notes” of flavor are lost during the heating and some manufacturers of chocolate products add chocolate extract to replace these important flavor components.
I discovered Star Kay White chocolate extract when I wrote my first cookbook and I was contacted by Ben and Jim Katzenstein, who, incidentally, had attended my college in upstate New York. Their small company was founded in 1890 by immigrant relatives. Star Kay White extract is made by steeping cacao beans in a base of alcohol in the same manner that pure vanilla extract is produced. I had never heard of chocolate extract, and I am naturally wary of any “flavoring enhancers” used by food processors. Yet when I twisted open the top of the amber bottle and sniffed apprehensively, I was surprised by the intense aroma of roasted cacao, a full expression of chocolate. I began experimenting, using their chocolate extract like vanilla extract, adding a generous teaspoon to many of my chocolate desserts. Now I find myself reaching for that bottle when making a batch of brownies, or to add to the batter of a rich chocolate cake. I have found that chocolate extract certainly does enhance the exquisite chocolate flavor of just about everything I make.
LET THE CANDY MAKING BEGIN
Some companies ship the finished chocolate directly to large candy companies in liquid form, which saves both the chocolate company and the confectioner time, money, and resources. If the manufacturer is to shape the chocolate into bars, blocks, chips, or pistoles (small disks, which are preferred by professional bakers because they’re easy to measure and temper), the chocolate must be tempered. To temper chocolate, the temperature of the melted chocolate is lowered, then carefully raised to stabilize and emulsify the cocoa butter. Once the chocolate is perfectly tempered, it is immediately deposited into molds, which are vibrated to release any air bubbles. After a trip though an air tunnel or cooling chamber, the firm, shiny chocolate is released from the molds then wrapped and sealed for storage and shipping.
A BRIEF HISTORY OF CHOCOLATE
By analyzing ancient pottery, experts agree that the discovery of chocolate belongs to the Olmec tribe along the Gulf Coast of Mexico, as early as around 600 B.C. At first, only the milky pulp surrounding the beans within the pod, called cupuaçu, was used as a drink by the Toltecs. It’s likely they found the raw seeds too unpleasant to enjoy. Eventually, however, the Toltecs learned to cook the beans by roasting them over a fire to make them somewhat palatable in their furtive quest for food sources. Once they discovered how tasty the roasted beans were, the now-precious cacao beans ascended in value to the point where they began to be traded as legal currency as well as a food source. A pumpkin could be had for 4 cacao beans, a rabbit for 10, and a slave for 100. Although the Toltecs became a prosperous group for many years, an eventual downward spiral of economic and social stagnation set the stage for their subsequent conquest by the Aztecs, who became transfixed by those dusky beans; they began pulverizing cacao into a drink by blending the bean sludge with water. To do this, they developed a tool called a molinillo, a wooden staff with decorated mixing rings, a blending tool still used today in just about every Latin American country.
During his conquest of Mexico in 1519, the Spanish explorer Cortés discovered that the Indians, both the working class and the nobles, were enjoying this odd drink called xocolatl (pronounced chocolatl). Although the nobility flavored the drink with sweeteners or chile, the common folk diluted the pricey bean paste with inexpensive cornmeal. The Spanish settlers began experimenting with cacao by augmenting it with nuts and pungent spices brought from their homeland. Of course, word (as well as the taste) of this new drink caused a huge sensation back home in Spain, which, at the time, was enjoying prosperity. Sipping chocolate became all the rage, a tasty impetus for the newly rich to show off their privilege and wealth, often enjoying and sharing sweetened chocolate as a drink at socials.
The popularity of chocolate soon spread from Spain throughout Europe, most notably into France (via the Basque regions of Bayonne and Biarritz), and Italy, where dainty ladies enjoyed it and transformed the enjoyment of chocolate into a highly refined social event. Many paintings from this period depict women leisurely reclining while enjoying a porcelain demitasse of steaming chocolate. Such ceremony is reflected by the beautiful porcelain, silver, and copper chocolate pots now sold by antique dealers or even displayed in museums. Symbolic of the social values of the era, these pots are distinct and unmistakable, with their carved wooden sticks inserted through a hole in the lid to blend the chocolate, reminiscent of the molinillos used by earlier chocolate lovers. Chocolate pots are still sold and used, mostly in Europe.
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Cacao or Cocoa?
Cacao refers to the pod (cacao pods), the beans within (cacao beans), and the pure paste of the bean (cacao paste or cacao “liquor”).
Cocoa is the powder made from the cacao bean, which is mashed into a paste then pounded to extract the cocoa butter and pulverized into a dry powder. It is believed the name “cocoa” came about as the result of a misspelling by early English traders.
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Eventually, in their quest to automate chocolate making, enterprising Europeans developed mechanical grinders and processing machines. Now the laborious task of crushing and grinding chocolate was replaced by machinery and heavy stone conchers, which rather effortlessly transformed the rough cacao mass into a smooth paste through the motion and heat of the stone rollers grinding away. Soon there was enough chocolate for just about everyone who wanted it, and it was no longer the exclusive beverage of the wealthy and powerful elite. And by the 1820s, cacao trees were introduced into Africa and South America.
The first full-scale, relatively modern chocolate factory was set up in Britain in 1728, followed by several more across Europe. In Holland, Coenraad Van Houten developed a method for separating the cacao mass from the cocoa butter, producing what we refer to as cocoa powder, and revolutionized the chocolate-making process. Human hands were still necessary, but much of the heavy-duty kneading was now done by machines. The Swiss are generally credited for shaping the first modern bar of chocolate in 1819, even though the Aztecs were known to make chocolate “bars” by spreading smooth cacao paste onto a banana leaf and drying it in the sun until it hardened. Another important development came out of the desire and eventual ability to knead dry milk paste into chocolate to enhance its nutritional properties. This became the first version of what we know as milk chocolate. Daniel Peter incorporated dry milk powder into chocolate in the mid-1870s. Rudolphe Lindt of Switzerland developed the first refined conching techniques, which made possible what we now think of as high-quality, smooth, silky chocolate.
Once the machinery was in place, chocolate production and distribution over the next few years quickly became democratized: chocolate for everyone! The more chocolate became available, the more it was consumed. And, as chocolate products and palates became more refined, the spices popular in earlier times were no longer added. The newest and possibly the greatest innovation of the twentieth century was made by a Belgian manufacturer in 1912. Jean Neuhaus developed techniques for making pralines, known elsewhere as dipped or filled chocolates, or bonbons. And just a few years later, across the Atlantic, the Milky Way bar was developed in the United States by the Mars corporation and then the famous Mars bar which revolutionized the American candy and chocolate business.
Sweet Success in Hershey, Pennsylvania
Today, Hershey’s is still the biggest success in the world of chocolate. Hershey’s is the most recognizable and widely known chocolate. In fact, the Hershey bar is the best-selling chocolate bar in the world. Milton Hershey began his success by founding a caramel company. It was wildly successful, and he eventually sold the entire caramel factory for the then unheard-of price of $1 million. Mr. Hershey, then built a factory in Hershey, Pennsylvania, which became the largest chocolate manufacturing plant in the world. In addition to the chocolate factory, the town of Hershey became a project of Mr. Hershey, as he built schools, housing, and recreational facilities, as well as provided services to his employees. Even the town lamps are in the shape of Hershey’s Kisses. Much of the success of Hershey’s was due to the company’s ability to create and market new products that were, at the time, revolutionary. Milton Hershey was the first person to put nuts in candy bars, and the company developed special chocolates, using vegetable fats, that allowed wartime troops to take chocolate bars into combat situations in warm climates without melting, so soldiers could still enjoy the comforting and familiar flavor of chocolate far from home. The soldiers came home with fond remembrances of the Hershey chocolate bars that accompanied them into adverse situations.
Hershey, Pennsylvania, was modeled after the utopian vision created by Cadbury Chocolate in Bournville, England. The town of Hershey became a model community for the citizens who worked for the chocolate factory and their families. Vowing to help the less privileged, Mr. Hershey built a school specifically for underprivileged children. After his death, the prime directive of the Hershey Trust (which owns the Hershey’s chocolate company) was to endow and support the school. In 2002, the trust embarked on an attempt to sell the Hershey chocolate company, citing a need for steady income for the school, Mr. Hershey’s prime directive. This move created a dilemma, as the mission of the trust was to support the school, not maintain ownership or the integrity of the chocolate company. Yet critics, and certainly employees, were furious, citing Mr. Hershey’s intentions to keep Hershey’s as an independent company. (Over the years, other companies, such as Ghirardelli and Godiva, had been bought out by larger corporations, with mixed results.) Eventually the trust decided against selling the company.
Scharffen Berger Chocolate
My introduction to Scharffen Berger chocolate was at a meeting for bakers in San Francisco. I was standing outside a bakery our group had toured, and a genial-enough fellow sidled up to me. I had no idea that this moment would change my life. He extracted a small packet wrapped in aluminum foil from his pocket. Since we were in a dicey neighborhood, perhaps I should have been a bit apprehensive, but he looked decent enough. He opened the crumpled foil to reveal a small gooey mass of something dark brown, sticky, and partially melted from the summer heat.
He asked me to sample it, and I can honestly say that it was the first time I really, truly understood what chocolate was all about. I recall being disarmingly intrigued; the chocolate was roasty and earthy, bittersweet, complex, with a coarse, unfinished edge that I found immensely appealing. I was tasting an experimental sample proffered by none other than Scharffen Berger’s cofounder, Dr. Robert Steinberg.
He apologized for its coarseness, but his apologies were unnecessary. I was transfixed by his chocolate, although I thought he was out of his mind for starting a chocolate business. How could he compete in the big world of chocolate, with little more than a dream of changing the way America thinks about chocolate? I could not have been more wrong. Scharffen Berger has grown, prospered, and changed the public perception of chocolate, as well as the nature of the chocolate business in the United States.
Before John Scharffenberger and Robert Steinberg started producing their chocolate, I think most people in the United States were not well-informed about quality chocolate. It was often assumed that chocolate was either an industrial creation used to make a generally flavorless chocolate confection bought off a drugstore or supermarket shelf, or something exclusive and chic from Europe. Sometimes it was good, but often it was nothing more than a fancy label, promising more interesting flavors than the chocolate inside delivered.
Once their small-scale production was up and running, the publicity and interest they generated were immediate. Riding a renewed interest in American artisan foods, the last piece of the puzzle—chocolate—had been fitted into place. These two regular guys, John and Robert, worked in an undistinguished warehouse on the outskirts of San Francisco, using vintage European machinery, working day and night, roasting, grinding, and molding their deeply complex chocolate into glossy bars, each one handwrapped (they could not find a wrapping machine that would wrap such a small production of chocolate.) I had never realized that chocolate could be made with such passion and on such a personal level.
Robert traveled to South America to learn as much as he could about the cultivation and fermentation of cacao beans, and John, who previously owned a vineyard, learned about blending beans (similar to blending grapes) to bring out the best qualities of cacao. John Scharffenberger is hopeful that others in the United States will undertake similar, small-scale manufacturing of chocolate. He knows that if more people produce artisan chocolate, it will generate more attention and interest, and the entire industry will benefit from a heightened appreciation for quality chocolate.
As their popularity exploded, Scharffen Berger quickly outgrew their modest facilities and moved to a suitable brick building in Berkeley, California. The expanded factory, while still very small by industry standards, produces shiny tablets of dark chocolate in differing sizes, my favorite being the littlest ones with crunchy chopped cocoa nibs or coffee beans scattered throughout. Their organic cocoa powder is not Dutched since they believe that only inferior-quality cocoa powders need to be treated to have their acidity reduced. A visit to their website is almost as good as a visit to their factory, which can easily arranged through the site.
“From the bean to the bar” has been Scharffen Berger’s motto, which defines their intention to educate an eager public about their careful procurement and roasting of the cacao beans, the subsequent blending and grinding, and the final depositing of this rich, thick liquid chocolate into molds to harden into their superb finished tablets of chocolate.
By David Lebovitz in "The Great Book of Chocolate", Speed Press (an imprint of the Crown Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., New York.),2004, excerpts chapter II. Adapted and illustrated to be posted by Leopoldo Costa.