Cocoa and Chocolate

It is a matter of common knowledge that chocolate is made from cocoa. In fact for most people chocolate and cocoa are synonymous. Chocolate is made from the fruit of the cacao tree. This tree is a native of South America. The ancient South Americans found it more useful to use the cocoa seeds as a sort of currency than use it for making chocolate.

So, how do you get chocolate from the cocoa seeds? The cocoa beans undergo a lot of processing before they are in the form that we recognize as chocolate. Firstly they are fermented. Next, they are sun dried and bagged before being exported. To develop the distinctive flavor of chocolate, the cocoa beans are sorted, cleaned and roasted. These roasted beans are then shelled and grounded. The intense heat of the grinding process melts the fat in the cocoa beans resulting in a fatty material with a bitter taste called the chocolate liquor. From this liquor cocoa butter or yellow fat is separated leaving behind a solid cake. This is then ground and sifted to manufacture cocoa powder.

To make the chocolate that you get in the market, sugar, additional fat and milk and other things depending on the type of chocolate that is required, is added to the chocolate liquor. The fat that is usually added to the chocolate is cocoa butter which gives it the melting sensation. Most countries including US permit only this fat to be added to the chocolate but some countries also permit the addition of vegetable fat.

Chocolate Names

What’s in a name? A rose is a rose by any other name – so said Shakespeare. The same thing can be said about chocolate. The taste of chocolate is not going to differ because of a change in the name.

There are many stories as to how the name chocolate came about. For something that has existed for centuries it is not a surprise that there are so many stories associated with its name. According to the Merriam Webster dictionary and many other dictionaries and sources for that matter, the word is derived from the Nahuatl language. This was the language spoken by the Aztecs. So, according to this source chocolate is derived from the word chocolatl. But, others beg to differ. According to some there was no such word in any language ancient or not. This word was coined by the Spaniards by taking the Maya word chocol and replacing the Maya word for water with the Aztec word atl. In yet another story the word is supposed to be derived from Maya word chokola’j which to drink chocolate together.

Some of the most famous brands of chocolates have the same name as that of their company. For instance Nestle. There are others who have different name their chocolates. Again Nestle comes to mind. Kit kat is a famous brand by itself. Not everyone is aware that it is manufactured by Nestle. Same goes for toblerone and many other varieties of chocolates. There are many stories behind the naming of various chocolates whereas some of them have very simple reasons for having their names.