Origin
Cocoa beans originate from cocoa pods, which grow from the trunk and larger branches of the cocoa or cacao tree. The trees grow in countries between about 20° north and 20° south of the equator.

Growth
After 5 to 6 months, the pods have grown up to 350mm in length and up to 1 kg in weight and have turned from green or red to yellow or orange. At this point they are harvested by hand.

Harvesting
Once picked, they are carefully cut open with a machete, to reveal up to 45 beans, which are actually the seeds of the tree, and removed by hand.

Fermentation
The next stage is fermentation, where the cocoa flavour precursors are formed. The beans are stacked in large wooden boxes, which hold 1-2 tonnes, covered with banana leaves and left for about five days to ferment. The fermentation involves different yeasts and bacteria killing the bean (or seed) and breaking down the sugars into lactic and acetic acid, while various compounds and enzymes react together within the bean to produce the flavour precursors. Bulk beans are sometimes not fermented and used in cheaper chocolate blends where the poor taste can be disguised using further processing techniques.

Drying
When fermentation is finished, the beans are removed from the box and spread out on mats to dry in the sun and raked over at intervals. It usually takes about a week of sunny weather to dry the beans to the 7 to 8% moisture content needed to prevent mould growth during storage. Some beans are dried using fires, which can produce unpleasant smoky or hammy flavours. Green & Black’s beans are all dried naturally.

The beans are shipped over to our chocolate factory to begin the transformation from bean to bar.

Sorting and Cleaning
After strict quality assessment the beans are destoned and cleaned to ensure they are safe to be used for human consumption.

Deshelling and Winnowing
The beans are then subjected to a brief, intense blast of heat to loosen the shell from the nib. This is followed by winnowing which is the action of breaking the beans and separating the shells from the nibs using sieves and streams of air.

Roasting
The separated nibs are then roasted at over 100°C to develop the rich flavour and the characteristic colour of the final products such as cocoa and chocolate. We roast at the lower end of the roasting spectrum to develop the flavour but not rid the beans of their intrinsic varietal and origin flavours.

Grinding
The roasted nibs are then ground to produce cocoa mass (also known as liquor), which is essentially particles of cocoa suspended in about 55% fat (also known as cocoa butter). Cocoa butter has a melting point of between 34-36°C and for this reason melts easily and quickly in the mouth as our body temperature is 37°C. The cocoa liquor is kept above its melting point so it can be easily piped about as a viscous, brown, shiny liquid – something like the texture of cream.

At this point, the cocoa mass takes one of two routes – to be separated into cocoa butter and cocoa powder or to be made into chocolate.

Cocoa Butter and Cocoa Powder
The first route is essential as cocoa butter is added to the final chocolate to make it more fluid, easy to melt in the mouth and not too dry by coating all the solid particles in the chocolate.

The cocoa butter is separated from the cocoa mass using an enormous press that exerts huge forces on to it. The result is liquid cocoa butter and cocoa cakes, varying in a fat content of 10-22%, which are further ground to make cocoa powder.

Mixing and Refining
The second route is the actual chocolate production. In our 70% dark chocolate this begins by mixing together organic cocoa mass, organic raw cane sugar and organic Bourbon vanilla to our own special recipe. This mixture is then refined through a series of rollers that perform a series of tasks. They grind the particles of cocoa, sugar and vanilla to such a degree that they cannot be felt on the tongue in the best chocolates, i.e. 15-20 one millionths of a metre or less than half the width of the finest human hair, and slightly larger in cheaper chocolates, which feel gritty on the tongue. They also mix together the ingredients and, with the heat generated by the friction, continue flavour development.

Conching
The next stage in making chocolate is called conching. It is called this because in the past this was carried out in vessels that looked at bit like a conch shell, using one roller that slapped the chocolate back and forth over a number of days. These days we use much larger vessels with a series of paddles that stir and heat the chocolate, driving off the volatile acids, developing the fine flavour of the chocolate and making it more homogenous. These more efficient machines can make chocolate in only a few hours, and this is the way cheaper chocolates are made, but we still conch our 70% dark chocolate for a whole day to ensure we attain the best possible flavours. The complex flavour of chocolate is due to the huge number of flavour compounds in cocoa. More than 400 of them have been found in cocoa following fermentation, drying, roasting and conching, which is far greater than most other foods.

Once the conching has been completed, extra cocoa butter is added to ensure all the particles are coated with fat and the chocolate will flow properly, as chocolate is essentially just particles of cocoa, sugar, milk powder (in milk chocolate) and flavouring (real vanilla usually in good chocolate, vanillin in cheaper chocolate) surrounded in fat (just cocoa butter in good chocolate, also some cocoa butter replacers in the form of vegetable fats in cheaper chocolates).

The standard milk chocolate made in the UK is made with chocolate crumb. This is an ingredient made with chocolate mass, sugar and milk, which are heated to evaporate the water and formed into a crumb. This ingredient has a caramelised taste through the cooking process, which delivers a different flavour profile compared to a milk chocolate of higher quality, which is made with just cocoa solids, milk, sugar, vanilla (and lecithin).

Tempering
The final step before moulding into our bars is tempering. This must be done to ensure that the chocolate is shiny without any grey streaks (known as blooming), has a good clean snap and does not melt at too low a temper, i.e. in your hands. Cocoa butter can set with both stable and unstable fat crystals. To ensure the chocolate is properly tempered, all the fat crystals must be of the stable variety. First the chocolate is heated to 48°C to melt all the fat crystals. It is then cooled to 27°C to set the correct amount of stable fat crystals to provide the beginning of a structure. Unfortunately, some unstable fat crystals are formed at the same time, so the temperature has to be increased to 32°C which is warm enough to melt the unstable fat crystals, but not warm enough to melt the stable ones.

Moulding
The chocolate can now be moulded into our bars, with enough stable fat crystals in the correct structure to ensure the rest of the crystals will follow the pattern and therefore the bar will be properly tempered.

Read a chocolate glossary of terms

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