Chocolate: History and Production

Overview
• Brief History of Chocolate-American and European.
• The Birth of the Dark Chocolate Bar.
• The production of other types of chocolate bars and
products.
• The future of Chocolate production and cocoa.
A Brief Intro to Chocolate.

• Scientific name- Theobroma Cacao.

• Native- Mesoamerica (Modern day
Mexico)
• Currently Grown in Tropical Areas
including Mexico, Ghana, Cote
d'Ivoire, Madagascar, Indonesia,
India, etc.
Chocolate in the Americas.
• Fermented beverages made from chocolate date
back to at least 1900 BC to 1500 BC.
• Originally prepared only as a drink called
“Xocolatl”, chocolate was served as a bitter
liquid, mixed with chili, spices or corn puree.
• Evidence suggests that it may have been
fermented and served as an alcoholic beverage
as early as 1400 BC.
• The Olmecs used it for religious rituals or as a
medicinal drink, with no recipes for personal
use.
• The Mexica believed that cacao seeds were the
gift of Quetzalcoatl, the god of wisdom, and the
seeds once had so much value that they were
used as a form of currency.
Chocolate in Europe.
• Spanish conquistador Hernán Cortés may
have been the first European to encounter
chocolate when he observed it in the court of
Montezuma in 1519.
• After the Spanish conquest of the Aztecs,
chocolate was imported to Europe.
• In the beginning, Spaniards would use it as a
medicine to treat illnesses such as abdominal
pain because it had a bitterness to it.
• Once sweetened, it transformed. It quickly
became a court favorite. It was still served as
a beverage, but the addition of sugar or
honey counteracted the natural bitterness.
Chocolate in Europe.
• In 1828, Dutch chemist Casparus Johannes
Van Houten decided to use hydraulic presses
in the chocolate manufacturing process.
• His son, Coenraad Van Houten's machine
created a "cake" that could be pulverized into
cocoa powder, which was to become the
basis of all chocolate products.
• This cocoa powder could more readily
dissolve into water/milk making it the new
base for hot chocolate drinks.
• One more modification made by the
Europeans was “Dutching” the cocoa which
was to treat it with an alkali to make it more
palatable.
Process of Chocolate Production
Cocoa Powder and Cocoa Butter.
• The center of the bean, known as the "nib", contains an
average of 54% of cocoa butter, which is a natural fat.
• When the beans are roughly ground up, it forms “cocoa
mass” of “cocoa liquor” which is a loose mixture of
cocoa solids and cocoa butter.
• Pressing can be regarded as filtration under the effect
of excess pressure - in filtration, the driving force for
separation originates from the hydraulic pressure of
the slurry.
• Cocoa powder is manufactured by hydraulic pressing
of finely ground cocoa liquor, which must have been
made from well-winnowed, high-grade cocoa beans.
• Hydraulic presses can automatically and accurately
obtain the required fat content in the cocoa cake.
• The final products are cocoa butter and the cocoa cake
which is ground into cocoa powder.
Grinding Processes and their importance.
• Grinding is the process of converting the cocoa nibs
into a fine powder and then into smooth chocolate.

• In order for the coarse cocoa nibs to become smooth

craft chocolate bars, they need to be ground at
extreme speed and power for several days. This is
achieved by placing the nibs in a rapidly spinning
vessel with rotating granite stones fitted in the base.

• When ground for long enough, the nibs release the

cocoa butter within them, and the dry powder
changes into liquid chocolate. At this stage, the
cocoa butter can either be removed and sold as pure
cocoa butter or kept in the chocolate to be turned
into bars.
Milk Chocolate
• The Natural History Museum lists Irish botanist Hans
Sloane as the inventor of drinking chocolate with milk.
Sloane found the local Jamaican beverage consisting of
cacao and water served to him in Jamaica unpalatable,
but by adding milk to it, found it much improved.
• Swiss inventor Daniel Peter successfully combined cocoa
and powdered milk in 1875 that the milk chocolate bar
was invented.
• On a mass production scale, this sprouted issues as
powdered milk was hard to transport so Daniel Peter then
substituted the powdered milk with condensed milk.
• This not only produced a smoother product but also was
significantly cheaper and easier to transport through
pipes.
• When Milton S. Hershey tried to replicate this process, his
milk soured mildly causing the Hershey’s bar to taste
more bitter than other contemprories.
White Chocolate
• As white chocolate is essentially milk chocolate
devoid of cocoa solids, it is perhaps noteworthy
to recall that the latter was developed in the late
19th century by Daniel Peter and that it quickly
became the most popular type of chocolate.
• White chocolate does not contain cocoa solids.
• Cocoa butter is the only cocoa ingredient in
white chocolate. White chocolate contains only
trace amounts of the stimulants theobromine
and caffeine which are present in the cocoa
mass but not the butter.
• Flavorings such as vanilla may be added to
white chocolate confectionery.
• As of 2022, white chocolate accounts for about
10 percent of the overall chocolate market.
Compound Chocolate
• Compound chocolate is a product made from a
combination of cocoa, vegetable fat and sweeteners.
• It is used as a lower-cost alternative to pure
chocolate, as it uses less-expensive hard vegetable
fats such as coconut oil or palm kernel oil in place
of the more expensive cocoa butter.
• Cocoa butter must be tempered to maintain gloss
and coating. Tempering is the process of controlling
the crystallization of the cocoa butter in chocolate
so it sets firm.
• Compound coatings, however, do not need to be
tempered as the vegetable fat sets in an ideal
crystal structure.
• Compound chocolates also have higher melting
points making them more robust.
The Future of Cocoa.
• According to scientists at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric
Administration (NOAA), cacao plants will most likely be extinct by 2050.
• Cacao plants seem to be very susceptible to fungal disease and climate
change.
• In 2010, Michael Moyer wrote for Scientific American about how the
spread of witch’s broom, frosty pod, and other fungal diseases have
essentially destroyed cacao trees in Central America, their original
natural habitat.
• The world’s leading chocolate producers — Cote d’Ivoire, Ghana and
Indonesia — collectively produce half of the world’s chocolate, but that
could all change due to climate change.
• Research done by the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change)
found that the average temperature increase for those countries will be
3.8°F by 2050. The higher the temperature, the more liquid escapes the
soil and plants, therefore producing poorer quality crops.
• The Independent reports that scientists at the University of California
Berkeley are using CRISPR technology (a gene altering tool) to try and
modify the DNA of cacao plants. If they can modify the plants to
withstand a higher-temperature and lower humidity.
Thank You.
References
1. https://www.magnumicecream.com/us/en/stories/about-us/the-history-
of-chocolate.html
2. https://web.colby.edu/st297-global18/2018/10/28/from-bean-to-bar-a-
history-of-chocolate-production/
3. https://www.azom.com/article.aspx?ArticleID=21600#:~:text=In%201828
%2C%20Dutch%20chemist%20Coenraad,in%20the%20chocolate%20man
ufacturing%20process.&text=Van%20Houten%20designed%20a%20press,
become%20known%20as%20Dutch%20cocoa
.
4. https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/9781118939741.ch13#:~:te
xt=Hydraulic%20presses%20can%20automatically%20and,of%20travel%2
0of%20the%20ram
.
5. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ibjUpk9Iagk
6. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dT_LaNOhY4s
7. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_chocolate#Modern_use