The History of Chocolate
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Chocolate is made from cocoa beans, which come from the Cacao tree (Theobroma cacao). Perhaps few chocolate eaters are aware of the extraordinary beauty of the cocoa tree, which in its native state grows in the lush jungles of Central and South America, on both sides of the equator. Imagine walking through a rainforest filled with luxuriant green trees. Occasionally a bird with breathtaking plumage flies close by , displaying a rainbow of colours in its feathers. A medium size tree with broad, dark green leaves catches your attention and you gasp in wonder at the almond shaped fruit growing on its stems. A myriad of colours greets your eye; all different shades of reds, purples, yellows, greens, maroons and browns. Surely, this must have been akin to the fruit Eve was tempted to eat – its colours call out to you with promise of a special food inside. It is not surprising that the Mayans and Aztecs of Mexico believed that the God of Agriculture provided the Cacao tree from Paradise and that the cocoa beans were the “food of Gods”.

The Cacao tree originated in the tropical rain forests of the Amazon basin in South America and was later brought to Mexico and Costa Rica. Cacao trees are now grown in a zone 20° north and south of the equator, such as in Brazil, Venezuela, the West Indies, Ghana, Nigeria, the Ivory Coast, Madagascar, Sri Lanka, the Philippines, Malaysia and even Hawaii. The word ‘chocolate’ is derived from the Aztec xocoatl, meaning ‘bitter drink’. The Aztec emperor Montezuma used the beverage in his religion and the beans were used as currency. For example, we are told the value of one slave was typically 100 beans. Imagine what that would be like now … safes would hold chocolate bars instead of cash, and it would be considered as a sign of wealth to have a large supply of chocolate bars in your handbag!

Since ancient times, chocolate has been associated with pleasure, passion, energy and even enhanced sexual powers. In fact the chocolate drinks prepared by the Aztec were highly prized as a nuptial aid and not surprisingly were a favourite drink at wedding ceremonies. Tradition even has it that Montezuma was reputed to drink chocolate freely throughout the day; and always fortified himself with the beverage before entering his harem – perhaps it could be considered to be an ancient form of Viagra! Because of its renowned energy giving properties, chocolate was also a food for the Aztec warriors to strengthen them on military campaigns.

Of course, the chocolate used by the Aztecs when the first European reached Central America was very different to the chocolate we know today. It was a bitter brew made from cocoa beans and spices. These fruit were put in an earthenware pot and dried over a fire. The beans were then broken between two stones and ground into a flour, just as grain would be ground to make meal for bread. This flour was transferred into another vessel, moistened gradually with water, and chilli (or ‘long pepper’) added. The drink could then be thickened using maize meal (cornflour) to the point that it could be moulded into a biscuit if necessary. In this way the chocolate could be taken as a beverage or eaten as a wafer or even as a type of porridge.

Cacao in Europe

Cacao as a beverage was brought to Europe when Columbus and Cortes delivered beans to the King of Spain between 1502 and 1528. The Spaniards added sugar and cinnamon and heated the brew to improve the taste, and kept the beverage a secret for about a century. Cacao subsequently was introduced into France , and by 1657, into England and the North American colonies of the Dutch and English.

Growing and harvesting cocoa beans

Cacao trees are now grown in plantations as well as rainforests. The tree takes about seven years to mature and produces little flower cushions that grow directly on the trunk and branches of the tree. These delicate flowers are not pollinated by bees. Instead they are pollinated by a myriad of minute flying insects which breed in the rotting jungle vegetation and live in the cool, moist conditions under the rainforest canopy. The colourful cocoa pods take about six months to ripen and yield almond sized beans nestled in a sweet citrus-like pulp. A single tree will yield about 50 to 60 pods which each contain somewhere between 20 to 40 beans.

The harvesting and the breaking open of the beans is still all done by hand – even in this age of high technology and labour saving devices. Despite a number of attempts to design a mechanical harvester to remove cocoa pods from the tree, it has so far proved impossible. One of the reasons for this is that it is important to not damage the flower cushions which are growing nearby. Even the breaking of the pods and the extraction of the wet beans is still done by hand, even though engineers have tried for decades to develop a mechanical pod breaking and extraction machine. Cocoa is one of the few foods remaining today that are still harvested and separated totally by hand. The beans, which are 31 per cent fat, 14 per cent carbohydrate and 9 per cent protein, are bitter because of their alkaloid content, and fermentation is necessary to develop the strong chocolate flavour.

For many years now, the majority of cocoa beans have been grown in plantations, but there is an interesting environmental twist to this practice now developing. Only now are producers realizing that the best flavoured cocoa beans are grown in a rainforest; under the natural canopy of the taller rainforest trees. The flavours of the beans grown this way are far superior to those grown in the regular plantations. Another factor coming to light is that two rainy seasons per year are ideal for the development of the pods. This has led some chocolate manufacturers to begin to actively campaign against the cutting down of rainforests and destroying the environment, and instead to encourage farmers and plantation owners to established their cocoa tress in the rainforest itself and to work at preserving the total ecology of the rainforest. It is just a dream at this stage, but would it not be wonderful if eating a chocolate a day could help preserve the wonderful rainforests of our planet?

That wonderful chocolate flavour –
how does it come about?

Chocolate flavour is developed in three parts : the first on the plantation by the correct fermentation of the wet beans by the grower, the second by the processor in the factory at the roasting stage, and the third also in factory at the conching stage. Fermentation is achieved by leaving the beans in wooden boxes or in piles on the ground covered with banana leaves, for one to five days depending on the bean variety. The beans are then dried in the sun for another five to seven days. The dried beans are usually shipped to foreign cocoa processing factories where they are roasted for about 40 minutes at 100-220 C to enhance the flavour. After roasting, the beans are dehulled and the bean flesh, called nib, is ground to a paste now called cocoa mass or chocolate liquor which is quite bitter. When making chocolate, you will mix the cocoa mass and sugar, and milk powder in the case we would like to produce milk chocolate. These ingredients will then be grounded together to a fine particle size after which they will be conched. This conching at quite high temperature will evaporate the volatile acides and refine the chocolate flavour. Mechanical mills introduced during the industrial revolution made chocolate more available to people other than the aristocrats and nobility .

In 1828 a Dutch chemist by the name of Conrad J. van Houten developed a new type of hydraulic press with which he was able to press out about half of the cocoa butter present in the paste that was formed from grinding the beans. This left behind a brittle, cake-like residue that could be pulverized into a fine powder. Van Houten then went one step further and treated the powder with alkaline salts which improved its ability to mix with water. This process, which came to be known as ‘Dutching’ or ‘alkalising’, also darkened the color of the chocolate; and at the same time lightened the flavour so that it was not quite so strong. This new process led to the manufacture of what we now know as ‘cocoa powder’; and revolutionized the chocolate industry. At this stage we should point out that cacao is the botanical name that refers to the tree or its pods and sometimes now also to the beans that have been fermented; whereas cocoa refers to the modern manufactured powder sold for drinking or for food manufacturing purposes.