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Chocolate History
The History of Chocolate Where does chocolate come from? Chocolate comes to us from the cacao tree, a tree native to South and Central America. The cacao tree is a sensitive evergreen that requires just the right conditions for its growth and survival. It only grows in warm, wet tropical climates, generally confined within 10 to 20 degrees north and south of the equator. The cacao is accustomed to loose, rich soil, shade, and protection from the wind, and although in the wild it can grow up to 50 to 60 feet high, it usually takes shade and protection from even taller, larger trees in the forest. When domesticated and cultivated commercially cacao trees are kept to about 20 feet in height to make harvesting easier. To duplicate the protective conditions within a cacao plantation, larger, leafy trees native to the area are planted among the cacao trees to give them the shelter they need. Small white flowers bloom on the cacao tree year around, and from these grow large fruit pods whose centers contain the seeds that chocolate is made from. Cacao pods are large fruits about 8-14 inches long, tapered at both ends, about the shape and size of a football. They are hard and thick-skinned and have deep ridges running lengthwise. The outer skins of the premature fruit pods are green in color and over the six months it takes for them to ripen they turn from beautiful mixed shades of yellow-green to orange to orange-red and then finally to red. These fruits grow very uniquely, directly off of the branches, even right off of the main trunk of the tree itself. On the plantation workers handpick the cacao fruit twice a year. They snip the pods off with machetes and later give them a good whack, splitting them, then scooping out the 25-50 almond shaped seeds (known as cacao beans) that are inside, along with some of the white, pulpy membrane that surrounds the beans. They place the cacao beans and this membrane on banana leaves inside open containers to ferment for several days. After this the beans are either sun-dried on racks for several more days or dried in machines. Then the beans travel to where they will be made into chocolate. Once there, the beans are cleaned and then roasted. Cacao roasting is similar to nut roasting in that it’s done in a temperature between 250 to 350 degrees and inside revolving drums. After roasting, the beans are stripped of their thin outer protective shells and the inner contents, which are called nibs, are crushed, warmed, and ground into a pulpy nut butter-like paste. And it is this nutty-like paste that is the base for all forms of chocolate. The two simple steps of fermenting the beans at the plantation and then roasting them later is what gives the beans, or more precisely the nibs inside, their characteristic chocolate flavor. The earlier step of fermenting the beans is the essential step that starts the development of the chocolate flavor. Then drying them enables the beans to keep while being stored and transported. Later, the roasting brings the flavor of the nibs to their peak. And finally the grinding of the nibs provides a usable paste that is the basic source of chocolate. How long has man been doing this? Before Christopher Columbus first landed in the Western Hemisphere in the late fifteenth century, the year 1492, advanced cultures had existed in these continents. One such culture, the Mayans, lived in Central America, in the area now known as Guatemala. It is known that the Mayans had been making chocolate paste for centuries before Columbus first landed, and the Mayan’s use of chocolate goes back to at least the third century. It is speculated that the exact origin of the cacao tree is below Central America, down in northern Brazil, in the northern part of South America. It is also speculated that the use of cacao beans for chocolate paste dates back in these areas for hundreds of years even before the third century. The Mayans, who had cultivated cacao trees and harvested the fruits, finally migrated in the seventh century (the 600’s) from the Guatemala area north to the Yucatan Peninsula, an area that is now part of Mexico. It seems cultures that have had chocolate in their diet don’t wish to be without it, evident by the fact that the Mayans had to bring these trees with them for establishing cacao plantations in their new home further north. The Mayan culture continued for hundreds of years and finally in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries they had become subjugated, as did other peoples in the area, by the powerful Aztecs who had risen to power in what is now known as Mexico today. It appears that by the trickle effect the different people from South America, reaching all the way north into the area of Mexico, had chocolate firmly integrated into their cultures. But they didn’t eat it in solid bar form like we typically know it today. They made a chocolate drink out of it. They mixed the basic chocolate paste in hot water, added some of their native spices and flavors, including vanilla, and even hot chili peppers, sometimes along with maize as a thickener, and then mixed it well and then cooled it. They mixed it so well there would be heavy, thick foam on top of it in the glass. And if they could, the wealthy upper class that is, would have snow brought in from mountaintops afar so the drink could be chilled extra cold. This chocolate drink was not sweetened. It was like a thick, chilled, powerful, bitter coffee or espresso. They loved it. More than that, in fact. Cacao beans became such a valuable commodity among these people that the beans were used as their currency. Cacao beans were what were used to buy both goods and service in their economies. What’s more, the Aztecs, who had conquered and subordinated other peoples of the lands, and who’s own home base, which was located in the greater part of the Mexico area, being too far north to grow cacao, imposed regular tributes to be paid to them by their southern subjugates, and they demanded that they be paid in cacao beans. So in 1492 Columbus landed, but over the years he traveled up and down the coasts exploring the New World he failed to take note of the chocolate. He was exposed to the cacao beans, they were pointed out to him, and he was even offered the drink. But he dismissed it. He didn’t see chocolate’s incredible significance and it’s potentials. Hernan Cortes, again on behalf of Spain, later followed Columbus, but did not fail to notice the chocolate. He saw the beans being used as currency, and how the people valued them more than gold and silver, and so he set up a cacao plantation in the name of Spain. He had the idea he would be growing New World money right on trees. He also sent cacao beans back to Spain with the method and recipe to make the chocolate drink. Back in Spain the royal court tried it. Then they tried it again, but instead they reached for some sugar, something they acquired from another part of the world. They proceeded to leave the vanilla in, but they dropped the New World’s powerful spices and flavors, including the chili, and replaced it with more mellow Old World spices, such as cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves and allspice. And they drank it heated. They preferred it this way. In fact, they became hooked. Spain’s nobility then adopted the chocolate drink for their personal pleasure, where they proceeded to successfully consume and keep chocolate a strict secret from the rest of Europe. They essentially behaved like many people naturally do when they have chocolate—they hid it from the others. They had the cacao beans fermented and dried in Central American plantations, as well as plantations they established elsewhere, such as Indonesia. Then they had the beans shipped to them in Spain where they arranged for the whole final system of making the chocolate to be done in strict secret by the monks. They believed the process, method, and product wouldn’t leak out into the public that way and get communicated about, and especially so as not to be discovered by foreign travelers. They firmly pressed upon the monks that they didn’t want them to spill the beans, so to speak. And it worked. They managed not only to keep this going for a few years, but for the sixteenth century entirely. Toward the end of the century in 1579 English pirates on the high seas captured a Spanish cargo ship loaded with cacao beans. The pirates didn’t know what to make of the beans so they discarded them. Again in 1587 a British ship captured another Spanish cargo ship full of cacao beans. They didn’t have a clue either, so into the ocean the beans went. It’s said a Dutch ship had this same outcome when they captured a load too. Finally at the turn of the century Spain’s good thing came to an end as their close kept secret began to unravel. If it wasn’t either merchants from other countries—or agents in service of these countries—poking around in the New World, reporting back about the new chocolate or worse yet publishing their findings, it was an outgoing cascade from Spanish royalty having married over into royalty of another country, giving chocolate as a gift to that royal court, someone in that court marrying someone in another royal court in some other country, and so on. What’s worse, the monks started talking. So in the early part of the 1600’s Italy and France became familiar with chocolate. By 1657 the first chocolate house opened in England by a Frenchman. Chocolate was also moving out into greater Europe. And these countries jumped in and began growing and producing their own chocolate. However, because of certain factors, the chocolate drink was very expensive, so expensive that it was out of reach to the average person and could only be afforded by the wealthy. There were several reasons for this. Cacao plantations were in their earlier stages of development and weren’t productive enough. Growing cacao far away in tropical parts of the world and then having it shipped overseas in wind and sail driven vessels added to the cost. And finally there was a lot of manual labor in the final preparation of the beans. To top it off, European governments had a tendency to heavily tax chocolate because of the money willing to be paid for it. They wanted to get a hold of part of that money as revenue. However, this didn’t stop chocolate from beginning to branch out into other forms of consumption. In 1674, in a famous upscale coffeehouse in London, chocolate cake and even chocolate rolls could be found, which were actually pretty radical for the time. This coffeehouse even had the first precursor to solid eating chocolate offered in the form of crude sticks. By the time the 1700’s rolled around cookbooks with recipes for preparing chocolate were published. Cacao plantations were increasing and becoming more efficient and productive. Just before the mid 1700’s new pressing devices were being fashioned to try to help production. And the manual labor system for grinding the cacao nibs was worked on and improved significantly. This was the beginning of the elimination of chocolate’s big labor problem. At this point in time, though, chocolate paste was still mainly being used to make chocolate drinks, with a small budding second branch beginning to use chocolate in baking and some early forms of chocolate confections. The chocolate paste was still in its simple form as ground cacao nibs, formed into cakes that could be later used in these varying ways. In 1764, the chocolate migration, which had originally begun in the Americas and then made its way to Europe, finally made full circle back to the Americas. British colonists in the area of what is now the state of Massachusetts began making chocolate under the name of the Baker Chocolate Company. During this time in Europe it had become acceptable in trade transactions to negotiate for payment in cacao beans. Finally after Baker’s Chocolate began in the colonies, trading for cacao bean payment could be found in that region as well. The final relief to chocolate’s manual labor problem came in the later part of the 1700’s as the Industrial Revolution was born. Chocolate makers incorporated steam engines into their production systems. By the 1800’s chocolate was shaping into a big industry. Then in 1828 an important breakthrough came about in the chocolate industry. Coenraad Van Houten, a Dutch chocolate maker devised a special press that would squeeze most of the cocoa butter, the natural fat found in the cacao nibs, out of the chocolate paste, resulting in a compact, partially defatted chocolate cake that could be pulverized into fine powder. The desire was to have a chocolate that would mix much easier with liquid. This worked just as he had planned. Van Houten was also a chemist. He then treated the new chocolate with alkaline salts, because chocolate tends to be a little acidic and edgy in it’s flavor. This treatment made the chocolate a little less bitter and it rounded its flavor out. This method became known as "Dutching". Van Houten’s defatted chocolate powder, which came to be known as cocoa, as well as Dutching, improved the quality of drinking chocolate. (He then went on of course to patent his chocolate press and have them sold.) But this new cocoa powder and the Dutching wasn’t the only advancement chocolate would see that would come directly from his new method. Van Houten found, as did other chocolate makers, that some of the separated cocoa butter could be melted and added back into the defatted cocoa along with sugar and the resulting substance would mold very nicely into forms. And it tasted really good too. Van Houten’s new system, the resulting cocoa, and this new kind of solid chocolate further made from it, were what shaped the modern chocolate industry and it’s two basic forms of chocolate that are made to this day. In 1847 an English chocolate company named Joseph Fry & Sons created and put onto the market the first actual chocolate bar for eating. It was a huge hit with the public. After Van Houten’s new system, chocolate manufacturers began making the defatted, pressed chocolate. Then they’d send it either through a system that made cocoa, or down another system that made solid chocolate in the form of molded bars that could be used in baking, confections, and for plain eating. The solid chocolate could be made without any sugar at all for specific baking and cooking needs, or it could be made with varying amounts of sugar to create what is known as bittersweet, semi-sweet, and sweet chocolate. Also, small amounts of flavoring like vanilla could be added. However, all the solid chocolate made up to this point in time is what we know as dark chocolate. Nevertheless, chocolate was becoming a public sensation. The entire chocolate system, from the cacao plantation, to making the chocolate, was becoming more productive and efficient. Governments then began to see better economic revenue potential from letting chocolate makers and sellers, including the new wave that wanted to get into the industry, sell to the public on a larger scale, at affordable prices. So they released their vice-grip of over taxation. The gates began to open for the average person to have chocolate. In 1861 Richard Cadbury of Cadbury Ltd. in England created the first heart shaped candy box for Valentine’s Day and filled it with chocolates. Then in 1875 after years of trying, Daniel Peter, a Swiss inventor, created the first milk chocolate bar. He was able to overcome the problem of milk spoilage as well as overcome the problem of how solid chocolate destabilizes when a secondary ingredient of high moisture content is added to it. He teamed up with Henri Nestle, another Swiss inventor, who had been working on a baby food project that required that milk be condensed and dehydrated because of spoilage problems. This teaming up lead to the first milk chocolate bar, as well as a Nestle Food Corporation that would go on to become the largest food company in the world. The creation of milk chocolate by way of incorporating dehydrated milk later led to the invention of white chocolate, which was merely the cocoa butter, sugar and the new dairy element combined together. In 1879 one of the final big breakthroughs for chocolate development came about. Rodolphe Lindt, a Swiss chocolate maker invented a machine called the conch. It was a device designed to receive and hold a large amount of chocolate at the final stages of its processing. It would keep the chocolate warm, in it’s liquid state, and heavy rollers would roll against the chocolate over and over and over again until the particles of chocolate that normally couldn’t break down any further during the regular process would be reduced enough so that the final chocolate, when later eaten, would be superfine, and have a melt in your mouth consistency. Chocolate (xocoatl) had traveled a long journey through time, place and form, all the way from the days when the Mayans called it xocoatl ("bitter water"), to the Aztecs calling it chocolatl, to the Spanish secret called chocolat, and finally to the English pronunciation called chocolate. It had been served for hundreds of years, cold, in water, as a spicy-bitter drink mixed to a froth. Later, people drank it heated, mild and spicy-sweet, first in water, then later in milk. Then it became more refined and pure, and finally it became an elegant, edible bar. And to finish it off, it was made silky smooth. Now chocolate flavors, accents, and orchestrates itself with many other foods. It is a permanent part of the U.S. military’s field rations and astronauts take it into space with them. And people still hide it from others. Its interesting to hear how the names have changed over time. The ancient original name for the chocolate tree was "cacahuaquachtl". Just look at the letters and try saying the word through a couple times. Foreigners who had to say this word a few times undoubtedly started saying, "Uh, and here is thee, uh, …ca-ca-o..uhoh uhmm? tree," "Yep, that tree, over there, the cacao." In 1753 Carl von Linne, a renowned Swedish biologist, gave the cacao tree it’s official scientific name and place within the plant world. He called it Theobroma Cacao. Theo means god and broma means food, and this title roughly means tree of the food of God. It was because the ancient Mayans and Aztecs believed that God made a special trip down when this food was brought into the world. They believed that it was brought down from the heavens and given to them as a gift. In fact, if you look at the tree, it looks like these fruits were placed on the trees rather than grown by them. Today’s chocolate manufacturing facility is generally huge, immaculately clean, and is a very scientific looking operation. However, the quality of chocolate can vary depending on the materials used and how the chocolate is made. The cacao beans themselves of course are a factor in the quality of the chocolate. Makers have the choice of two basic varieties of beans. The criollo bean is the highest quality and most flavorful cacao bean. However it is the most costly and expensive because the trees are harder to grow and maintain. The forastero bean comes from a heartier and more easily cultivated cacao tree, but the flavor of the bean is not as good. A lot of forastero beans are produced in the world, while a smaller amount of criollo beans are grown. Makers usually blend these beans together. They also often add into their blend beans that are hybrid crosses between these two kinds of beans. One main branch of hybrids is the trinitario cacao bean. To make things a little more complicated, all of these kinds of beans can taste a little different. For example, if one kind of cacao is grown in Haiti and that same kind is grown in West Africa the flavor notes might be somewhat different. Some cacao has been fairly successfully grown outside the regular tropical zone, in the semi-tropical Hawaiian Islands, and the flavor of the nibs there tends to be mild, with delicate perfume-like, fruity notes. So when it comes to bean selection it can be an art, and it can be more costly or less costly and the flavor of the chocolate usually will reflect that cost. The treatment of the beans of course affects the final chocolate flavor as well. Early, when the beans are originally removed from their pods, if, after the fermenting process, the beans are sun dried over time rather than dried quickly in machines the quality of the chocolate flavor will be richer and sharper rather than harsher and more bitter. Later, when the beans are roasted, if the temperature is lower and the duration is longer there is a similar result compared to higher temperature and shorter roasting time. A lot of this is common sense. Haste and cost cutting creates more bitter chocolate with less good quality flavor. Other areas of the chocolate making process affect chocolate’s quality too. For example, the duration of conching time determines how smooth its dissolve and consistency will be, but it will even improve the flavor if it’s done properly. Aside from the selection of beans and the steps of processing, what is combined with the ground cacao nibs to complete it and make it the final chocolate is another factor in its quality. Solid chocolate as we know it today is basically the substance found in the cacao nibs (cocoa solids and cocoa butter) combined with either sugar and a tiny amount of soy lecithin, making dark chocolate, or sugar and milk with a tiny amount of soy lecithin, making milk chocolate. White chocolate is like milk chocolate except it has no cocoa solids (the dark cocoa flavored substance that is part of the cacao nib). Lecithin is just a type of soy product added to chocolate in tiny amounts to help further stabilize the chocolate particles. Invariably, poor quality chocolate can be traced back to cost cutting. They may use cheaper beans, they may machine dry them and later roast them at too high a temperature so it will take less time, and they may not run their conches long enough. Then they may dump too much sugar into the chocolate, which means less cacao. It can get pretty bad—flavor that is harsh, edgy, and grindingly sweet. On the other hand some companies can be very good about it. Better quality chocolate is referred to as coverture. It has a higher cacao content and is more mild in sweetness. Some companies shoot for high quality chocolate and specialize in coverture. Their product will usually say on the label what the cacao percentage is. Higher quality chocolate makers are usually found in and around Belgium, Switzerland, and France. When it comes to the chocolate confectioners, and the candies they make, the chocolate itself becomes but one ingredient among what could be many others. Again, the quality of the different confectioner’s candy can vary depending on their selection of chocolate, the other ingredients used, the recipes and methods for their finished items. One last technical point about chocolate that most people are not aware of is called tempering. Aside from a little lecithin and vanilla, solid chocolate is made out of cocoa solids, cocoa butter, sugar, and maybe dehydrated milk. Cocoa butter is the natural cacao fat found in chocolate and at room temperature it is solid. It is whitish in color. When the temperature of chocolate reaches 80 and 90 degrees it begins to melt. The cocoa butter inside the chocolate goes into liquid state. When chocolate is melted and then cooled back down it becomes solid again. If you were to heat up fresh chocolate, liquefy it, and then let it cool and completely set again, 9 times out of 10 it would have a whitish, cloudy, streaky, hazy or spotty residue all over it’s surface and it would look just like it had been pulled out of storage, having sat in some dusty old warehouse for twenty years. This is not an exaggeration. It would look dusty and chalky. People would think it’s spoiled. The white haze is the cocoa butter and it has separated and set in a non-uniform way with respect to whole mixture. The chocolate is out of temper. And this problem is called bloom. Solid chocolate’s final stage in processing at the factory is when it gets tempered. It is tempered while still warm and liquid, just before being poured into molds to make chocolate blocks or bars. Because of the tempering it will set with a clean surface finish, it will be smooth and even grained throughout, have a nice snap to it when it breaks, and it will melt smoothly in the mouth. If this tempered chocolate is re-melted for use again as a coating or as new solid bar, it will go out of temper again. Without talking like a chemist and describing crystalline structure and cocoa butter beta crystals and such, a simpler idea would be to say that after re-melting, the cocoa butter has become unstable, and it’s relationship with the rest of the components within the chocolate has become polarized, and, well, "everyone within the chocolate is in disagreement". So while the chocolate is heated, in liquid state, before coating something or making bars out of it, it must be re-tempered. Everything must be brought back in order, in line, within the chocolate. To temper chocolate, one must first be aware of what the working temperature is of the chocolate that is being tempered. This is simply the temperature in which a particular chocolate must be at when dipping a center in it, coating something with it, pouring it into moulds for bars, etc, and, so that it will set properly and in the right amount of time. The kind of chocolate, and even a specific brand or maker’s chocolate, may call for a certain temperature, often printed on the packaging for commercial confectioner’s use, but generally for milk chocolate, for example, the working temperature is approximately 86 degrees, and for darks it is around 90 degrees. So anywhere from a small or a vast amount of chocolate can be tempered, it doesn’t matter, but however much it is, it is gently melted and heated up to 105 to 115 degrees. This is to completely melt and separate all the components within the chocolate in preparation to realign them. Then the chocolate is slowly cooled back down to several degrees below the working temperature. While it is cooling and lowering in temperature, often small size pieces of chocolate, bits, etc, from solid, fresh, tempered chocolate, are added in small amounts to the batch to melt in. This is called seeding, and it serves to model or suggest in a way the proper alignment and it actually prompts the untempered chocolate in getting started in this way. Alignment begins to develop and spread throughout. When the chocolate reaches the low temperature it is held there for a short while before being raised up those few degrees to the working temperature. This low temperature helps stabilize the cocoa butter as well. Once raised to the working temperature it is held there for the entire time that the chocolate is being used, deposited, etc. From the moment the chocolate had become liquid at the beginning of the tempering process until it is used up at the working temperature at the end, the batch of chocolate is constantly being stirred. And, deviating from the working temperature as little as one to two degrees during use of the chocolate can begin to cause the chocolate to set with bloom. Chocolate is very sensitive stuff. Solid chocolate that is in proper temper can, if it warms up and becomes soft, such as having been in a warm vehicle or in a warm room, develop some bloom. The cocoa butter can migrate to the surface of the warm chocolate and when it re-sets it can dry on the surface of the chocolate in the form of a little bloom. Again, bloom doesn’t mean spoiled chocolate. It can be unsightly though, depending on the degree of bloom, and the smoothness and flavor when eating might be slightly less spectacular. But mostly it’s a problem of appearance. The final aspect of chocolate follows the question of how healthy it is to eat chocolate. Health issues these days constantly arise in public, including questions about the foods we eat. As we step into the twenty-first century, chocolate, among other foods, has been looked at more closely. The cacao bean, again, contains fats and other substances and so the big question is asked about it. Here are what the studies of chocolate show: Cocoa butter contains no cholesterol, and, eating chocolate does not cause blood cholesterol to rise. In addition, the cacao nibs contain antioxidants, which help to reduce bad cholesterol in the blood. Chocolate helps to reduce blood pressure as well. Chocolate also offers many healthy and essential vitamins and minerals. It even contains chemicals that give the body a sense of ease and a sense of well being and it combats depression. Although cocoa butter is not a bad type of fat, its actually a good one, these other listed substances are mainly found in the cocoa solids (the dark substance that comes from the cacao nibs, that would be present in milk chocolate and dark chocolate, but not in white chocolate). So when you look at the three varieties of solid eating chocolate, white, milk, and dark, it is the dark chocolate that offers the greatest amount of health benefits from cacao. Milk chocolate is diluted further because of the milk powder added, so it is the next best chocolate in terms of cacao content. White chocolate is at the lowest end of this scale because it contains only cocoa butter from the cacao and none of the cocoa solids. Simply put, the best, and the healthiest chocolate, is made with better grade cacao beans, without excessive sugar added in the process. Quality chocolate makers make their chocolate this way. And again, milk chocolate is good, but dark chocolate is the winner with regard to healthfulness, and the higher cocoa content the better. Chocolate does in fact have naturally occurring caffeine in it. But it isn’t in high amounts. An ounce of chocolate, depending on whether it is milk or dark, has about 5 to 10 milligrams of caffeine, while a cup of coffee has 100 to 150 milligrams. The main ingredient used by confectioners to make their creations may be chocolate, but there are other food items used in confections as well. Nuts are often used, such as almonds, walnuts, pecans and peanuts. Nuts are heart healthy, like cacao. They have no cholesterol and the fat in them is mainly monounsaturated, which is a healthy fat to consume. Like cacao, nuts have many disease fighting vitamins and minerals in them, as well as antioxidants that help prevent coronary heart disease. So when you step back and look at the big picture, a quality box of chocolates is not as terrible as some voices might assert. Its true there may be dairy products and sweeteners added to help make up the typical chocolate confection, but there are many good things about it weighing in on the other hand. A good chocolate is first designed to be delicious and give pleasure, make you feel good, and give you a happy body chemistry. Its true you can say both good and bad things about what it is made out of. People have lived to ripe old ages and have also had chocolate in their lives. A typical person might receive a box of chocolates once or twice a year. They may buy it or come across it from time to time. What keeps this kind of chocolate in "temper" within the public with regard to excess is the fact that it is costly to make and too expensive for a person to be eating every day like a food staple. It is an occasional, special treat. Just beware and be careful when it comes to the mass produced cheaper stuff placed before you at every corner, drawing you to the idea, tempting you. It’s a trick. Be strong. © 2004 Charlie’s Chocolates |
