Chocolate and its Making

            Nothing can beat the sweet taste of Cadbury milk chocolate as you take a bite and it slowly melts in your mouth. Savoring the sweet flavor, we feel like all chocolate was made to be this way. Of course what we don’t realize is that chocolate did not just come prepared this way. A football shaped pod from the Theobroma cacao tree, also known as the cacao tree, is where this story to the chocolate bar begins.

            First we should learn about the climate for the cacao tree. The Theobroma cacao tree originated in the Mesoamerican growing region, which spans from Latin America down to the northern part of South America. While the exact origins of the cacao tree are unknown, it has been discovered that the Olmec people, “who lived along the Gulf of Mexico as early as 1500 B.C.” were the first people to cultivate the cacao tree and grow it in small gardens of their own (Lopez 14). The only place suitable for the cacao tree is in the hot, humid environment of the tropical rainforest. The rainforest has a unique ecosystem that remains hot and humid year round and continually has an average temperature of eighty degrees Fahrenheit (Lopez). The rainforest also has about “eighty to four hundred inches of rainfall annually” (Lopez 9). These growing conditions are very specific to the rainforest and are hard to reproduce in other areas of the world. One of the benefits of the rainforest is that they have trees of varying heights, which help to shade the cacao trees from some of the sunrays, as well as help to keep it a humid environment. The trees also keep most of the sun blocked off of the ground, which creates a rich environment for “decaying vegetation” like dead trees and fallen leaves where insects, fungi, and other creatures thrive (Lopez 10). This environment enriches the soil, which helps the cacao tree grow.

We never think about chocolate ever becoming a rare commodity, but at the rate of deforestation, this could become a very real possibility. We know that it is hard for the cacao tree to be grown anywhere else but the rainforest, because of the difficult environment to reproduce, so by destroying the rainforest, we risk the loss of chocolate and a whole host of other food items in the process. It is predicted that at the current rate of deforestation, the rainforest will be gone within forty years (Lopez). While this may have nothing to do with chocolate directly, the importance of the rainforest in chocolate production is key to giving it optimal conditions to grow. Knowing this is eye opening to what is going on with our food production. We can sit by and let the rainforest be destroyed, but in doing so, we let our common commodity in every house become not so common. Things like advocating for the stopping of cutting down the rainforest can help to keep our beloved chocolate stay ours.

            Some of the most interesting things that I found, besides where cacao trees are grown and the threatening extinction of chocolate, is the way that cacao beans are transformed into the chocolate bar we think of today. The first step is to harvest the cacao pods from the trees and bring them back to where they will be processed. This process is very labor intensive and there are no machines that can do it, unless they might rupture the pod. The pods are then split in two and the pulp and seeds are put into water, in order to allow for the fermentation process to go underway (Lopez). After the fermentation process, the seeds are left out to dry (Lopez). From the drying stage, the beans are then roasted, which helps to determine the different flavors of chocolate and the different types of chocolate (Lopez). The husks on the outer part of the cacao bean are removed after roasting, which are then discarded, and the cacao nibs are then ground up into a paste (Lopez). This paste is made into chunks, which can then be shipped to countries around the world and processed (Lopez). From here, the big brand name companies like Lindt, Cadbury, and Hershey’s all essentially add sugar to the paste to make it creamy and sugary like we know it. This makes the smooth chocolate bar that melts in our mouths as we take a bite.

            We really do not realize how fortunate we are to have a thousand different types of chocolate. One of the longest lasting arguments that I have heard in relation to chocolate is whether or not European or American chocolate is better. Many American’s think that the American chocolate is better, and many Europeans think their chocolate is better. While doing research about chocolate, I found a man named David Lebovitz who posted about this argument. He is an author of cookbooks about baking and chocolate and comments that it is not the “industrial chocolates” that interest him but in fact the “chocolatiers” that are doing “quality work” (Lebovitz). Lebovitz has an interesting position about the argument because it is more about the specialized chocolate than the industry chocolate we think of. I know now that there can be many places to look for things like chocolate (unless the rate of deforestation destroys it all). We need to be more open about our food choices and more willing to try new things.

Works Cited

 

Lebovitz, David. "Chocolatiers and Chocolate-Makers." David Lebovitz: Living the Sweet Life in Paris. 14 Jan. 2007. Web. 09 May 2012. <http://www.davidlebovitz.com/2007/01/chocolatiers-an-1/>.

Lopez, Ruth. Chocolate the Nature of Indulgence. New York: Harry N. Abrams, 2002. Print.