Topics Food and drink

How is chocolate made?

Chocolate is made from the seeds of the cacao tree. Farmers open the pods, ferment and dry the seeds, and ship them to a factory. There they are roasted, cracked, ground into a thick paste, blended with sugar and often milk powder, refined until smooth, and tempered so the finished bar snaps cleanly.

What makes it interesting is how little of the flavor is in the seed to begin with. Raw cacao is bitter and astringent. The fermentation after harvest, driven by microbes living on the pulp around the seeds, starts the chemistry that later roasting finishes. Much of chocolate's character is decided before a factory ever touches it, and the exact details vary by region, variety and maker, so some claims about flavor are still debated.

An episode on this topic would follow one seed from tree to wrapper, and explain why each step exists. In bre, the hosts are AI, so they can be wrong, and you can press Talk at any moment to ask about cocoa butter, dark versus milk, or why a bar sometimes turns chalky and pale.

What a bre episode would cover

An outline of the episode bre would make for this question. Every episode is written fresh when you ask, so yours will differ.

  1. From pod to seedCacao grows in large pods on trees in warm, humid regions near the equator. Workers open them by hand and scoop out the seeds in their sticky white pulp.
  2. Fermenting and dryingThe seeds are heaped or boxed for several days while microbes work on the pulp. Then they are dried, often in the sun, which stops the fermentation and reduces moisture so they can be stored and shipped.
  3. Roasting and crackingAt the factory, roasting develops aroma and color. The shells are cracked away, leaving small pieces of seed called nibs.
  4. Grinding into liquorNibs are ground until their fat melts into a thick, dark paste called chocolate liquor. It contains no alcohol, despite the name.
  5. Sugar, milk and cocoa butterLiquor can be split into cocoa solids and cocoa butter. Makers recombine them with sugar and sometimes milk to make dark, milk or white chocolate.
  6. Conching and temperingLong mixing smooths the texture and drives off harsh flavors. Careful heating and cooling then set the cocoa butter crystals so the bar is glossy and snaps.

How the episode might open

A sample exchange between two of bre’s AI hosts, bre and Cal. Both are AI; this is written by AI, as every bre episode is.

  1. breAI host

    Let's start with a plain question. When you bite into a chocolate bar, what are you actually eating? Because it doesn't start out tasting like that.

  2. CalAI host

    Right, it's a seed. Out of a pod, off a tree. And raw, it's awful. Bitter, sour, a bit chalky.

  3. breAI host

    So where does the flavor come from? Not the tree, apparently.

  4. CalAI host

    Mostly from what happens after. Fermenting, drying, roasting. Short version: the farm steps shape a lot of the flavor. And if you think about what a bar costs, that work is done by someone who never sees the shelf price, in a place far from the factory, with a heap of seeds and some weather to worry about.

  5. breAI host

    Okay, here's the part nobody tells you. The fermenting isn't something done to the seeds so much as something done around them, by microbes.

  6. CalAI host

    Hold on, how does that actually work? Microbes eating the pulp is what changes the seed inside?

  7. breAI host

    Roughly, yes. The pulp ferments, heat builds up, and that changes the chemistry in the seed. Scientists still argue about some of the details, which I like hearing said out loud.

  8. CalAI host

    Then the factory stage is where my brain goes to money. Conching, that long grind that makes it smooth, can run for hours, even days. That's machines, power and time, and it's one reason a cheap bar and a pricey one can feel different, along with the beans and everything before the factory.

Questions people also ask

What is chocolate made from?
Chocolate is made from cacao seeds, also called beans. They are fermented, dried, roasted and ground into a paste of cocoa solids and cocoa butter. Most bars then add sugar, and milk chocolate adds milk powder. Other ingredients, such as vanilla or lecithin, are common additions.
What is the difference between dark, milk and white chocolate?
Dark chocolate has cocoa solids and cocoa butter with sugar, and little or no milk. Milk chocolate adds milk powder and usually more sugar. White chocolate contains cocoa butter, sugar and milk, but not the dark cocoa solids, which is why it is pale.
What does conching do?
Conching is long, gentle mixing and heating of chocolate in a machine. It makes the particles smaller and the texture smoother, and it helps drive off some sharp, sour flavors. Makers differ on how long to do it, and the best length is partly a matter of taste.
Why does chocolate need tempering?
Cocoa butter can set into several crystal forms. Tempering means heating and cooling the chocolate in a controlled way so it forms the stable kind. That gives a shiny surface and a clean snap, and helps the bar resist developing a dull, streaky look.

Related topics

More: all 300 topics, food and drink, or the longer reads on /learn.

bre’s hosts are AI, and every episode is generated, so they can be wrong: check anything that matters. This page outlines what an episode would cover. It is for interest and learning, not medical, financial or legal advice.