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Cocoa beans are the seeds of cacao plant that are extracted from its fruit called “pods”. When the seeds are removed from pods, they are very moist. So, they need to be roasted to make them dry for making cocoa powder. The taste of the cocoa powder is not as sweet as you may have thought.
Cocoa, highly concentrated powder made from chocolate liquor—a paste prepared from cocoa beans, the fruit of the cacao—and used in beverages and as a flavouring ingredient. Cocoa is the key ingredient in chocolate and chocolate confections.
Harvesting of cocoa beans can proceed all year, but the bulk of the crop is gathered in two flush periods occurring from October to February and from May to August. The ripe seed pods are cut from the trees and split open with a machete. The beans, removed from the pods with their surrounding pulp, are accumulated in leaf-covered heaps, in leaf-lined holes dug in the ground, or in large shallow boxes perforated at the bottom to provide for drainage.
The beans with their pulp are fermented for one to seven days, depending on the type and grade. Frequent turnings dissipate excess heat and provide uniformity. During fermentation the juicy sweatings of the pulp are drained away, the germ in the seed is killed by the increased heat, and flavour development begins. The beans become plump and full of moisture, and the interior develops a reddish brown colour and a heavy sharp fragrance. The fermented beans are sun-dried or kiln-dried to reduce moisture content to 6–7 percent and are bagged for shipment.
The fermented and dried cocoa beans are then typically roasted. Roasting develops flavour, reduces acidity and astringency, lowers moisture content, deepens colour, and facilitates shell removal. After roasting comes a cracking and fanning (winnowing) process, in which machines crack the shells and then separate them from the heavier nibs by means of blowers. Nibs can be sold or further processed. Grinding releases the fat, or cocoa butter, and forms a paste, called chocolate liquor or cocoa mass. The chocolate liquor is pressed and pulverized into cocoa powder to make chocolate.
Cocoa bean shells, the major by-product of cocoa processing, represent 8–10 percent of raw cocoa bean weight and are blown off in the cracking and fanning, or winnowing, operation. They are used for fertilizer, mulch, and fuel.
The cacao tree was cultivated more than 3,000 years ago by the Maya, Toltec, and Aztec peoples, who prepared a beverage from cocoa beans (sometimes using it as a ceremonial drink) and also used the beans as currency. The Maya considered chocolate to be the food of the gods and held the cacao tree to be sacred. For the Aztec people, the drinks made from cocoa beans were reserved for the emperor and aristocracy. After destroying the Aztec empire, the colonizing Spanish began to experiment with cocoa; mole poblano, the rich chili-cocoa sauce, is probably an early example of this. When cocoa reached Europe, the Italians used the new spice in savoury dishes and created some of the earliest chocolate sweets with sugar.
