MANUFACTURE
Cocoa
Cocoa is a particularly fine product of the tropics. The cocoa tree grows in the tropical regions to the north and south of the equator. Its fruits, which grow right on the trunk, are harvested twice a year and contain 20 to 30 white cocoa beans each.
The beans, after being removed from the skin, are shaken into heaps, covered, and left to ferment. This causes the beans to lose their capacity to germinate, and at the same time some of the chocolate aromas begin to develop. Once they are dry, the cocoa beans are ready for shipping. They are bought by processing companies at the international cocoa exchanges in London and New York.
How chocolate is made
Chocolate production depends on the ancient craft of the confectioner and the chocolatier. Even today, industrial manufacturing still follows the basic stages of the original craft, although highly sophisticated technical apparatus has taken over the work at every stage. As well as making it possible to rationalise production, this also guarantees consistently high quality. Cocoa beans are the most important raw material for making chocolate. After detailed quality control checks, the raw cocoa is cleaned thoroughly, crushed, roasted and ground, to produce cocoa paste. Mixing this paste with sugar and additional cocoa butter gives the basic mixture for traditional plain chocolate. If powdered or condensed milk is added, the result is the basic mixture for milk chocolate. For white chocolate, on the other hand, the brown cocoa paste is omitted. These three basic mixtures form the starting point for all types of chocolate. After mixing, the basic mixtures are ground very finely and refined by "conching". This produces a chocolate mixture which is now ready to be made into solid bars, or bars filled with nuts, almonds, fruit or liqueur, filled chocolates, and many other specialities.
Now the delicious chocolates of various sizes are packed into wrappers and boxes, before finally being packed into large shipping cartons to be sent to the dealers’ intermediary stores and to be exported all over the world.
Quality
Connoisseurs recognise quality when they break a piece from a bar of chocolate: the break is hard and crisp, the edges of the break are clean, the surfaces do not crumble. The nose can also detect the quality: the smell of a fine chocolate is full and rounded, but never obtrusive. One then becomes very aware of true quality on the tongue: good chocolate melts like butter, does not stick to the roof of the mouth or feel gritty, and leaves hardly any aftertaste. Its flavour is fine, delicate, complete unique.
Shelf life
Depending on the recipe, chocolate will remain at its best for up to 12 months, and plain chocolate for as long as 15 months. Chocolate should be kept at a temperature of between 10° and 18°C, protected from light and moisture. Chocolate is good for you! Seldom do we find concentrated in such a small space in a single food such large quantities of valuable and energy-giving substances such as proteins, carbohydrates, trace elements, vitamins and minerals, all of them completely natural. A 100 g bar of milk chocolate provides around 2300 kilojoules or 550 kilocalories of usable energy. Chocolate is good and healthy. It supports the balanced diet which should always be our aim, but it does not replace it.
back to top
