History of Chocolate
Chocolate Through the Years
The story of chocolate, as far back as we know it, begins
with the discovery of America. Until 1492, the Old World knew nothing at all
about the delicious and stimulating flavor that was to become the favorite
of millions.
The Court of King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella got its
first look at the principal ingredient of chocolate when Columbus returned
in triumph from America and laid before the Spanish throne a treasure trove
of many strange and wonderful things. Among these were a few dark brown
beans that looked like almonds and seemed most unpromising. There were cocoa
beans, today's source of all our chocolate and cocoa.
The King and Queen never dreamed how important cocoa
beans could be, and it remained for Hernando Cortez, the great Spanish
explorer, to grasp the commercial possibilities of the New World offerings.
Food of the Gods
During his conquest of Mexico, Cortez found the Aztec
Indians using cocoa beans in the preparation of the royal drink of the
realm, "chocolatl", meaning warm liquid. In 1519, Emperor Montezuma, who
reportedly drank 50 or more portions daily, served chocolatl to his Spanish
guests in great golden goblets, treating it like a food for the gods.
For all its regal importance, however, Montezuma's
chocolatl was very bitter, and the Spaniards did not find it to their taste.
To make the concoction more agreeable to Europeans, Cortez and his
countrymen conceived of the idea of sweetening it with cane sugar.
While they took chocolatl back to Spain, the idea found
favor and the drink underwent several more changes with newly discovered
spices, such as cinnamon and vanilla. Ultimately, someone decided the drink
would taste better if served hot.
The new drink won friends, especially among the Spanish
aristocracy. Spain wisely proceeded to plant cocoa in its overseas colonies,
which gave birth to a very profitable business. Remarkably enough, the
Spanish succeeded in keeping the art of the cocoa industry a secret from the
rest of Europe for nearly a hundred years.
Chocolate Spreads to Europe
Spanish monks, who had been consigned to process the
cocoa beans, finally let the secret out. It did not take long before
chocolate was acclaimed throughout Europe as a delicious, health-giving
food. For a while it reigned as the drink at the fashionable Court of
France. Chocolate drinking spread across the Channel to Great Britain, and
in 1657 the first of many famous English Chocolate Houses appeared.
The hand methods of manufacture used by small shops gave
way in time to the mass production of chocolate. The transition was hastened
by the advent of a perfected steam engine which mechanized the cocoa
grinding process. By 1730, chocolate had dropped in price from three dollars
or more per pound to within the financial reach of all. The invention of the
cocoa press in 1828 reduced the prices even further and helped to improve
the the quality of the beverage by squeezing out part of the cocoa butter,
the fat that occurs naturally in cocoa beans. From then on, drinking
chocolate had more of the smooth consistency and the pleasing flavor it has
today.
The 19th Century marked two more revolutionary
developments in the history of chocolate. In 1847, an English company
introduced solid "eating chocolate" through the development of fondant
chocolate, a smooth and velvety variety that has almost completely replaced
the old coarse grained chocolate which formerly dominated the world market.
The second development occurred in 1876 in Vevey, Switzerland, when Daniel
Peter devised a way of adding milk to the chocolate, creating the product we
enjoy today known as milk chocolate.
Chocolate Comes To America
In the United States of America, the production of
chocolate proceeded at a faster pace than anywhere else in the world. It was
in the pre-revolutionary New England -- 1765, to be exact -- that the first
chocolate factory was established.
Chocolate has gained so much importance since that time,
that any interruption in its supply would be keenly felt.
During World War II, the U.S. government recognized
chocolate's role in the nourishment and group spirit of the Allied Armed
Forces, so much so that it allocated valuable shipping space for the
importation of cocoa beans. Many soldiers were thankful for the pocket
chocolate bars which gave them the strength to carry on until more food
rations could be obtained. Today, the U.S. ARmy D-rations include three
4-ounce chocolate bars. Chocolate has even been taken into space as part of
the diet of U.S. astronauts.
Growing the Cocoa Bean
Cocoa beans are the product of the cacao tree. The origin
of the cacao tree is in dispute. Some say it originated in the Amazon basin
of Brazil, others place it in the Orinoco Valley of Venezuela, while still
others contend that it is native to Central America.
Wherever its first home, we know the cacoa tree is
strictly a tropical plant thriving only in hot, rainy climates. Thus, its
cultivation is confined to the lands not more than 20 degrees north of south
of the equator.
The Need For Shelter
The cacao tree is very delicate and sensitive. It needs
protection from the wind and requires a fair amount of shade under most
conditions. This is true especially in its first two to four years of
growth.
A newly planted cacao seedling is often sheltered by a
different type of tree. It is normal to plant food crops for shade such as
banana, plantain, coconuts or cocoyams. Rubber trees and forest trees are
also used for shade. Once established, however, cacao trees can grow in full
sun light, provided there are fertile soil conditions and intensive
husbandry. Cacao plantations (trees under cultivation), and estates, usually
in valleys or coastal plains, must have evenly distributed rainfall and
rich, well drained soil.
As a general rule, cacao trees get their start in a
nursery bed where seeds from high yielding trees are planted in fiber
baskets or plastic bags. The seedlings grow so fast that in a few months
they are ready for transplanting, container and all.
The First Fruit
With pruning and careful cultivation, the trees of most
strains will begin bearing fruit in the fifth year. With extreme care, some
strains can be induced to yield good crops in the third and fourth years.
Everything about the tree is just as colorful as its
history. An evergreen, the cacao tree has large glossy leaves that are red
when young and green when mature. Overlays of clinging moss and colorful
lichens are often found on the bark of the trunk, and in some areas
beautiful small orchids grow on its branches. The tree sprouts thousands of
tiny waxy pink or white five-pedaled blossoms that cluster together on the
trunk and older branches. But, only three to 10 percent will go on to mature
into full fruit.
The fruit, which will eventually be converted into the
world's chocolate and cocoa, has green or sometimes maroon colored pods on
the trunk of the tree and its main branches. Shaped somewhat like an
elongated melon tapered at both ends, these pods often ripen into a golden
color or sometimes take on a scarlet hue with multicolored flecks.
At its maturity, the cultivated tree measures from 15 to
25 feet tall, though the tree in its wild state may reach 60 feet or more.
The potential age of a tree is open to speculation. There
are individual trees known to be over 200 years of age, but no one has
determined the real life span of the species. However, in 25 years the
economic usefulness of a tree may be considered at an end, and it often
becomes desirable to replant with younger trees.
Varieties of Cacao
While the cacao tree bears fruit (or pods) all year
round, harvesting is generally seasonal. The pods come in a variety of types
since cacao trees cross-pollinate freely. These types can be reduced to
three classifications: Criollo, the prince of cacaos, is a soft thin-skinned
pod, with a light color and a unique, pleasant aroma. Forastero, a more
plentiful type, is easier to cultivate and has a thick-walled pod and a
pungent aroma. Trinitario, which is believed to be a natural cross from
strains of the other two types, has a great variety of characteristics but
generally possesses good, aromatic flavor; and these trees are particularly
suitable for cultivation.
In the Western Hemisphere, strange as it may seem,
plantations composed of just one species of cocoa beans are uncommon. Even
single trees with all the characteristics of a specific type are rare.
Uniformity exists only where cacao plantations have been developed from the
rooted branch cuttings of single mother trees.
In recent years, cacao growers have turned increasingly
to hybridization as a means of improving the quality of the bean and making
it more disease resistant. Scientists using state-of-the-art biotechnology
techniques are also trying to improve the quality of cacao and its
resistance to disease.
Handling the Harvest
The job of picking ripe cacao pods is not an easy one.
The tree is so frail and its roots are so shallow that workmen cannot risk
injuring it by climbing to reach the pods on the higher branches.
The planter sends his tumbadores, or pickers, into the
fields with long handled, mitten-shaped steel knives that can reach the
highest pods and snip them without wounding the soft bark of the tree.
Machetes are used for the pods growing within reach on the lower trunk.
Where Experience Counts
It requires training and experience to know by appearance
which fruit is ripe and ready to be cut. Ripe pods are found on trees at all
times since the growing season in the tropics, with its evenly distributed
rainfall, is continuous.
For most localities there is a main harvest lasting
several months and a mid-crop harvest lasting several more months. Climatic
differences cause wide variations in harvest times with frequent
fluctuations from year to year even within the same location.
What Happens after Picking
Gathers follow the harvesters who have removed the ripe
pods from the trees. The pods are collected in baskets and transported to
the edge of a field where the pod breaking operation begins. One or two
lengthwise blows from a well-wielded machete is usually enough to split open
the woody shells. A good breaker can open 500 pods an hour.
A great deal of patience is required to complete
harvesting. Anywhere from 20 to 50 cream-colored beans are scooped from a
typical pod and the husk and inner membrane are discarded. Dried beans from
an average pod weigh less than two ounces, and approximately 400 beans are
required to make one pound of chocolate.
The beans are still many steps away from the familiar
finished product. Exposure to air quickly changes the cream-colored beans to
a lavender or purple. They do not look like the finished chocolate nor do
they have the well-known fragrance of chocolate at this time.
Preparing the Crop for Shipment
The cocoa beans or seeds that are removed from the pods
are put into boxes or thrown on heaps and covered. Around the beans is a
layer of pulp that starts to heat up and ferment. Fermentation lasts from
three to nine days and serves to remove the raw bitter taste of cocoa and to
develop precursors and components that are characteristic of chocolate
flavor.
Fermenting is a simple "yeasting" process in which the
sugars contained in the beans are converted to acid, primarily lactic acid
and acetic acid.
The process generates temperatures as high as 125 degrees
Fahrenheit, which kill the germ of the bean and activate existing enzymes in
the beans to form compounds that produce the chocolate flavor when the beans
are roasted. The result is a fully developed bean with a rich brown color, a
sign that the cocoa is now ready for drying.
Drying is Important
Like any moisture-filled fruit, the beans must be dried
if they are to keep. In some countries, drying is accomplished simply by
laying the beans on trays or bamboo matting and leaving them to bask in the
sun. When moist climate conditions interfere with sun-drying, artificial
methods are used. For example, the beans can be carried indoors and dried by
hot-air pipes.
With favorable weather the drying process usually takes
several days. In this interval, farmers turn the beans frequently and use
the opportunity to pick them over for foreign matter and flat, broken or
germinated beans. During drying, beans lose nearly all their moisture and
more than half their weight.
When the beans are dried, they are prepared for shipping
in 130 to 200 pound sacks. They are seldom stored except at shipping
centers, where they await inspection by buyers.
Marketing for export
Buyers sample the quality of a crop by cutting open a
number of beans to see that they are properly fermented. Purple centers
indicate incomplete fermentation.
If the prevailing crop is found satisfactory, the grower
is paid at the current market price. The market price depends not only on
the abundance of the worldwide crop and the quality of farmers' crops in a
number of countries, but on a number of economic conditions throughout the
world. The industry has set up Cocoa Exchanges, similar to stock exchanges,
in principle cities such as New York, London, Hamburg and Amsterdam.
From the Bean to Chocolate
We now come to the remarkable art of chocolate making, a
process that is comparable with the skill and finesse of the world's
greatest chefs. The manufacturing process requires much time and painstaking
care. Just to make an individual-size chocolate bar, for instance, takes
from two to four days or more.
Manufacturing methods will differ in detail from plant to
plant, but there is a general processing pattern which prevails everywhere.
It is this pattern that makes the chocolate industry distinctive from every
other industry.
For example, all manufacturers carefully catalogue each
shipment according to its particular type and origin. This is very
important, because it enables them later to maintain exact control over the
flavor blending of beans for roasting.
Prior to Roasting
While awaiting the blending process, the beans are
carefully stored. The storage area must be isolated from the rest of the
building so the sensitive cocoa does not come into contact with strong odors
which it may absorb as an off-flavor. Every step of the way so far reflects
the close regulation of conditions which is needed to ensure the production
of uniformly high quality chocolate.
The first step to actual manufacturing is cleaning. This
is done by passing the cocoa beans through a cleaning machine that removes
dried cacao pulp, pieces of pod and other extraneous material that had not
been removed earlier.
When thoroughly cleaned, the beans are carefully weighed
and blended according to a company's particular specifications. These
formulas are based on experience and desirability. In the science of
chocolate making, much depends upon the ability to achieve the right formula
for the desired end product through the proper selection of beans available.
To bring out the characteristic chocolate aroma, the
beans are roasted in large rotary cylinders. Depending upon the variety of
the beans and the desired end result, the roasting lasts from 30 minutes to
two hours at temperatures of 250 degrees Fahrenheit and higher. As the beans
turn over and over, their moisture content drops, their color changes to a
rich brown, and the characteristic aroma of chocolate becomes evident.
What Follows Roasting
Proper roasting is one of the keys to good flavor, but
there are still several more steps to follow. After roasting, the beans are
quickly cooled and their thin shells, made brittle by roasting, are removed.
In most factories, this is done by a "cracker and fanner," a giant winnowing
machine that passes the beans between serrated cones so they are cracked
rather than crushed. In the process, a series of mechanical sieves separate
the broken pieces into large and small grains while fans blow away the thin,
light shell from the meat or "nibs."
The nibs, which contain about 53 percent cocoa butter,
are next conveyed to mills, where they are crushed between large grinding
stones or heavy steel discs. The process generates enough frictional heat to
liquefy the cocoa butter and form what is commercially know as chocolate
liquor. The term liquor does not refer to alcohol, it simply means liquid.
When the liquid is poured into molds and allowed to solidify, the resulting
cakes are unsweetened or bitter chocolate.
Up to this point, the manufacturing of cocoa and
chocolate is identical. The process now diverges, but there is an important
interconnection to be noted. The by-product of cocoa shortly becomes an
essential component of chocolate. That component is the unique vegetable
fat, cocoa butter, which forms about 25 percent of the weight of most
chocolate bars.
How to Make Cocoa Powder
The chocolate liquor, destined to become a cup of cocoa,
is pumped into giant hydraulic presses weighing up to 25 tons, where
pressure is applied to remove the desired cocoa butter. The fat drains away
through metallic screens as a yellow liquid. It is then collected for use in
chocolate manufacturing.
Cocoa butter has such importance for the chocolate
industry that it deserves more than a passing mention. It is unique among
vegetable fats because it is a solid at normal room temperature and melts at
89 to 93 degrees Fahrenheit, which is just below body temperature. Its
success in resisting oxidation and rancidity makes it very practical. Under
normal storage conditions, cocoa butter can be kept for years without
spoiling.
The pressed cake that is left after the removal of cocoa
butter can be cooled, pulverized and sifted into cocoa powder. Cocoa that is
packaged for sale to grocery stores or put into bulk for use as a flavor by
dairies, bakeries, and confectionery manufacturers, may have 10 percent or
more cocoa butter content. "Breakfast cocoa," a less common type, must
contain at least 22 percent cocoa butter.
In the so-called "Dutch" process, the manufacturer treats
the cocoa with an alkali to develop a slightly different flavor and give the
cocoa a darker appearance characteristic of the Dutch type. The alkali acts
as a processing agent rather than as a flavor ingredient.
How to Make Eating Chocolate
While cocoa is made by removing some of the cocoa butter,
eating chocolate is made by adding it. This holds true of all eating
chocolate, whether it is dark, bittersweet, or milk chocolate. Besides
enhancing the flavor, the added cocoa butter serves to make the chocolate
more fluid.
One example of eating chocolate is sweet chocolate, a
combination of unsweetened chocolate, sugar, cocoa butter and perhaps a
little vanilla. Making it entails melting and combining the ingredients in a
large mixing machine until the mass has the consistency of dough.
Milk chocolate, the most common form of eating chocolate,
goes through essentially the same mixing process-except that it involves
using less unsweetened chocolate and adding milk.
Whatever ingredients are used, the mixture then travels
through a series of heavy rollers set one atop the other. Under the grinding
that takes place here, the mixture is refined to a smooth paste ready for "conching."
What is Conching?
Conching is a flavor development process which puts the
chocolate through a "kneading" action and takes its name from the shell-like
shape of the containers originally employed. The "conches," as the machines
are called, are equipped with heavy rollers that plow back and forth through
the chocolate mass anywhere from a few hours to several days. Under
regulated speeds, these rollers can produce different degrees of agitation
and aeration in developing and modifying the chocolate flavors.
In some manufacturing setups, there is an emulsifying
operation that either takes the place of conching or else supplements it.
This operation is carried out by a machine that works like an eggbeater to
break up sugar crystals and other particles in the chocolate mixture to give
it a fine, velvety smoothness.
After the emulsifying or conching machines, the mixture
goes through a tempering interval-heating, cooling and reheating-and then at
last into molds to be formed into the shape of the complete product. The
molds take a variety of shapes and sizes, from the popular individual-size
bars available to consumers to a ten-pound block used by confectionery
manufacturers.
Ready for Shipment
When the molded chocolate reaches the cooling chamber,
cooling proceeds at a fixed rate that keeps hard-earned flavor intact. The
bars are then removed from the molds and passed along to wrapping machines
to be packed for shipment to distributors, confectioners and others
throughout the country.
For convenience, chocolate is frequently shipped in a
liquid state when intended for use by other food manufacturers. Whether
solid or liquid, it provides candy, cookie, and ice cream manufacturers with
the most popular flavor for their products. Additionally, a portion of the
United State's total chocolate output goes into coatings, powders and
flavorings that add zest to our foods in a thousand different ways.
Inside a Chocolate Factory
In touring a chocolate factory, one is particularly
impressed by the close controls maintained throughout operations. Work is
carried out in an atmosphere of scientific exactness and nothing is left to
chance.
Precision instruments regulate temperatures, stabilize
the moisture content of the air, and control the time intervals of
manufacturing operations and other items necessary to achieve quality
results.
The equipment of a factory is heavy, massive and complex.
Often representing an investment of many millions of dollars, there are
literally tons of equipment that the cocoa beans must pass through on their
way to becoming chocolate.
Automation Does the Job
Besides the equipment already described, the industry
employs a number of fascinating machines to do the work of shaping and
packaging chocolate into the familiar forms that we see every day on store
counters. Some of the shaping machines perform at amazing speeds, squirting
out jets of chocolate that solidify into special shapes at a rate of several
hundred a minute.* Other machines do a complete job of wrapping and
packaging at speeds that human hands would find impossible.
* Separate from the chocolate industry but of interest
nonetheless, is the enrober-a machine employed by many candy manufactures in
the creation of assorted chocolates. The enrober receives lines of assorted
centers (nuts, nougats, fruit or whatever desired filling) and showers them
with a waterfall of liquid chocolate. This generally covers and surrounds
each center with a blanket of chocolate. Yet other confectionery machines
create a hallow-molded shell of chocolate which is then filled with a soft
or liquid center before the bottom is sealed with chocolate.
The mechanized nature of the entire chocolate-making
process contributes greatly to the industry's high standards of hygiene and
sanitation. To keep check on these standards, chocolate factories constantly
run quality tests, which show whether the process is proceeding within the
strict limitations designed for each product. These tests cover an amazing
range-there are tests for the viscosity of chocolate, for the cocoa butter
content, for acidity, for the fineness of a product and, of course, tests
for purity and taste of the desired finished product.
All chocolate manufacturers, it is important to note,
must meet the standards as set forth in the rules and regulations of The
Food and Drug Administration. These govern manufacturing formulas, even to
the extent of specifying the minimum content of the chocolate liquor and
milk used. They also impose strict rules regarding the flavorings and other
ingredients that may be used.
Reasons for Secrecy
Where methods of manufacturing are concerned; however,
manufacturers have a completely free hand and have developed individual
variations from the "pattern." Each manufacturer seeks to protect his own
methods by conducting certain operations under an atmosphere of secrecy.
Modern technology, in this respect, is reminiscent of the day of the Spanish
monopoly.
Today's "secrets," unlike those of old, include many
small but important details which center around key manufacturing
operations. No chef guards his favorite recipes more zealously than the
chocolate manufacturer guards his formulas for blending beans or the time
intervals he gives to his conching. Time intervals, temperatures and
proportions of ingredients are three critical factors that no company wants
to divulge.
A Sanitary Atmosphere
A visit to a chocolate factory certainly will not reveal
any secrets; however, the visitor will be impressed by the gleaming
appearance that such a place has. Chocolate manufacturers conduct all
operations under sanitary, laboratory-like conditions in keeping with the
purity of the products they make. They follow a daily regimen of machine
maintenance and general housekeeping that is not exceeded in the food
industry.
Cleanliness is, indeed, the universal byword of the
chocolate industry. Chocolate factories not only have careful programs for
industrial sanitation and for the personal hygiene of their employees, but
they are continually striving to improve their programs.
A Plant Within a Plant
Technicians use laboratories to analyze every phase of
chocolate preparation-from raw materials to finished products. They test
samples for the market as well as experimental products produced in a
company's pilot plants.
These pilot plants consist of miniature equipment which
duplicates a company's entire chocolate making process and those of some of
their customers, as well as providing sample quantities of any product
desired. Chocolate manufacturers are making increasing use of pilot plants
in conjunction with their laboratory research programs to develop
interesting new products and find new ways of making the old ones.
