CHOCOLATE
Chocolate is made from the cocoa bean, found in pods growing from the trunk and lower branches of the Cacao Tree It's Latin name is Theobroma Cacao meaning "food of the gods". The Cocoa Tree will grow only within a latitude of 10 degrees north or south of the equator at about 76m above sea level.

The earliest record of chocolate was over fifteen hundred years ago in the Central American rain forests, where temperatures and humidity provide the ideal climate for cultivation of the plant from which chocolate is derived, the Cacao Tree.

The Cacao Tree was worshipped by the Mayan civilisation of Central America and Southern Mexico, who believed it to be of divine origin, Cacao is actually a Mayan word meaning "God Food". Cacao was corrupted into the more familiar 'Cocoa' by the early European explorers. The Maya brewed a spicy, bittersweet drink by roasting and pounding the seeds of the Cacao tree (cocoa beans) with maize and Chili peppers and letting the mixture ferment. This drink was reserved for use in ceremonies as well as for drinking by the wealthy and religious elite. They also ate a Cacao porridge.

The Aztecs of central Mexico also prized the beans, but because the Aztec's lived further north the climate was not suitable for cultivation of the tree, they had to acquire the beans through trade. The Aztecs prized the beans so highly they used them as currency - 100 beans bought a turkey or a slave - and tribute or taxes were paid in cocoa beans to Aztec emperors. The Aztecs, like the Mayans, also enjoyed Cacao as a beverage fermented from the raw beans, which was also used in rituals and as a luxury available only to the very wealthy. The Aztecs called this drink Xocolatl, the Spanish conquistadors found this almost impossible to pronounce and so corrupted it to the easier 'Chocolat', the English further changed this to chocolate.

The Aztec's Emperor Montezuma reputedly drank it fifty times a day from a golden goblet and is quoted as saying of Xocolatl: "The divine drink, which builds up resistance and fights fatigue. A cup of this precious drink permits a man to walk for a whole day without food" In fact, the Aztec's prized Xocolatl well above gold and silver so much so that when Montezuma was defeated by Cortez in 1519 and the victorious 'conquistadors' searched his palace for the Aztec treasury expecting to find gold & silver, all they found were huge quantities of cocoa beans. The Aztec Treasury consisted, not of precious metals, but cocoa beans.

CHOCOLATE IN EUROPE
Chocolate was brought to Europe by Cortez. By this time the conquistadors had learned to make the drink more drinkable to European tastes by mixing the ground roasted beans with sugar and vanilla.

The first chocolate factories opened in Spain, where the dried fermented beans brought back from the new world were roasted and ground. By the early 17th century chocolate powder was being exported to other parts of Europe. The Spanish kept the source of the drink - the beans - a secret for many years, so successfully in fact, that when English buccaneers boarded what they thought was a Spanish 'Treasure Galleon' in 1579, only to find it loaded with what appeared to be 'dried sheep's droppings', they burned the whole ship in frustration. If only they had known; chocolate was so expensive at that time that it was worth it's weight in silver or gold, Chocolate was Treasure Indeed!

Within a few years, the Cocoa beverage made from the powder produced in Spain had become popular throughout Europe, in Spain, The Netherlands, Italy, France, Germany and - in about 1520 - it arrived in England.

The first chocolate house in England opened in London in 1657, followed rapidly by many others. Like the already well established coffee houses, they were used as clubs where the wealthy and business community met to smoke a clay pipe of tobacco, conduct business and socialise over a cup of chocolate.
BACK TO THE AMERICA'S
Event's went full circle when English colonists carried chocolate (and coffee) with them to England's colonies in North America. Destined to become the United States of America and Canada, they are now the worlds largest consumers of both chocolate and coffee.

CHOCOLATE AS WE KNOW IT
The first mention of chocolate being eaten in solid form is when bakers in England began adding cocoa powder to cakes in the mid 1600's. Then in 1828 a Dutch chemist, Johannes Van Houten, invented a method of extracting the bitter tasting fat or "cocoa butter" from the roasted ground beans. His aim was to make the drink smoother and more palatable, however he unknowingly paved the way for solid chocolate as we know it.

Chocolate as we know it today first appeared in 1847 when Fry & Sons of Bristol, England - mixed sugar with cocoa powder and cocoa butter (made by the Van Houten process) to produce the first solid chocolate bar. In 1875 a Swiss manufacturer, Daniel Peters, found a way to combine cocoa powder and cocoa butter with sugar and dried milk powder to produce the first milk chocolate.

HOW CHOCOLATE IS MADE
Producing chocolate is a time consuming and complicated process, but we have endeavoured to provide a simplified guide which we hope you will find easy to understand:
*The first step is the harvesting of the cocoa pods containing the cocoa beans.

*The pods are crushed and the beans and surrounding pulp extracted and fermented naturally for about six days in either open heaps or boxes after which the beans are dried.

*The finest chocolate is produced when the drying process is done naturally by the sun for seven days or more.

*Accelerated or artificial drying is quicker, but produces inferior quality chocolate, mainly used in mass produced products and cake coverings.

*The next process is shared with coffee in that the beans are first graded, then roasted. Roasting times depend on the type and size of the beans, like coffee this can also affect the final flavour of the chocolate.

*Light crushing separates the kernel or 'nib' from the shell or husk (like shelling a nut), the husk is then separated or 'winnowed' out and discarded.

*At this stage most manufacturers put the Cocoa Nibs through an alkalising process to help develop flavour and colour. However, some purists producing the finest chocolate prefer to rely on the quality of the beans and natural processing to produce the best colour and flavour.

*The nibs, which are very high in fat or cocoa butter, are then finely milled and liquefy in the heat produced by the milling process to produce cocoa liquor. When cocoa liquor is allowed to cool and solidify it is known as cocoa mass.

*At this point the manufacturing process splits according to the final product. If the end product is chocolate, some of the cocoa liquor is reserved, the rest is pressed to extract the cocoa butter leaving a solid residue called press cake. Press cake is usually kibbled or finely ground to produce the product known to consumers as Cocoa Powder.

The retained Cocoa Liquor and/or solid Cocoa Mass is blended with Chocolate Butter and other ingredients to produce the various types of chocolate.