The Long Journey Of Chocolate From Cacao Beans To Fine Chocolate

Executive Summary About Fine Chocolate By Gregg Hall

All chocolates use cacao beans, from the mass produced stuff inside M&M’s to the highest quality product that comes from Belgium. When the beans have been roasted, they are ground. When the beans are ground they secrete a thick liquid known as cacao liquor, which is used by chocolate manufactures.

fine chocolates

The liquor can be transformed into three different things, cacao butter, cacao powder, and chocolate. The liquor from higher quality beans is most often made into chocolate.

Just because you have high quality cacao liquor doesn’t mean that you have high quality chocolate. Conching itself is where much of a chocolate’s flavor will come from. One mast chocolate makers secret process of cooking the chocolate can be very different from another’s, and will impart a very different end result. Understandably, some gourmet chocolates makers can be highly guarded about their exact technique.

After conching, the pure chocolate is then turned into whatever the chocolate maker has in mind, milk chocolate, dark chocolate, cooking custom chocolate, or whatever else.

Check out my other guide on Chocolate Icing and Coffee Beans Chocolate

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