Starting from preparation to the various types, here are some ‘chocolaty’ facts for you
We all love sinking our teeth in a bar of chocolate every now and then. While they may seem like a dessert of the modern age, did you know that mankind has been gorging on chocolates for centuries? More than 3000 years ago, the Aztec, Toltec, and Maya people made a drink from Cacao tree fruits. The seeds obtained from this tree are now used for making chocolate. Today, you see varied kinds of chocolates: White, dark, and milk. But what exactly is the difference? Why do some chocolates have a percentage label? Well, let us clear these doubts for you!
The journey from cacao tree to cocoa beans
To understand the difference between the types of chocolates, you must first understand how this delicacy is made. The branches and trunk of the cacao tree produce green-coloured fruits known as pods. When these pods ripen and turn orange, workers gently take them off and remove cocoa beans from them. The next step is fermentation which takes nearly eight days, and the seeds turn brown. These beans are then dried in the sun or an oven for almost a week. Next, these dried seeds are given to companies to prepare chocolate.
The dried cocoa beans are further roasted to enhance their flavour. This is followed by removing their hard skin and grinding to form a paste. Also called chocolate liquor, this product is not directly sold in the markets for consumption. In fact, it is incredibly bitter! Depending on the type of chocolate, other ingredients are added to this liquor to make the final product. Most importantly, adding a fat called cocoa butter is essential as it makes the chocolate suitable for you to eat. After this, the final molten chocolate is poured into a mould, wrapped, packed, and made available for sale.
Bitter to sweet: Dark, milk and white chocolates
Now that you know about the basic process of how chocolate is made, let’s see how we get three different types of chocolate from the same tree and the very same beans! The additional ingredients added to the liquor change the taste and texture of chocolate. Let’s look at three common types of chocolate, i.e., dark, milk and white.
To make dark chocolate, companies add sugar to the chocolate liquor and cocoa butter mixture. The amount of sugar added to this mix is what decides the bitterness and texture of the final product. For instance, 80% dark chocolate means very bitter, hard and unpleasant to eat and containing 80% cocoa. On the other hand, a 35% dark chocolate is a bittersweet or semisweet category, that has more sugar and only 35% cocoa.
In case of milk chocolate, as the name suggests, it contains milk along with the chocolate liquor. It also has other ingredients like sugar and vanilla. When you eat this chocolate, you experience a soft texture in your mouth that melts easily and tastes fairly sweet.
You must have heard people saying that ‘white chocolate is not chocolate’. You will be surprised to know that it is true! Indeed, white chocolate does not have any cocoa solids in them. In fact, it only contains cocoa butter, sugar, and milk along with vanilla. Since there are no cocoa seeds, this chocolate is very sweet and creamier than dark or milk chocolate.
Fun facts
The journey of understanding the differences among chocolates will be incomplete without knowing some exciting facts about them. So, let’s glance through a few of such interesting facts:
- The first edible chocolate bar was made by a British chocolate company called J.S. Fry & Sons in the 19th century
- Because of their low sugar content, dark chocolates are considered healthier than others
- You can only make eight milk chocolate bars from one cacao tree! This is also why dark chocolate is so expensive compared to milk or white chocolates!
- Milk chocolate contains a higher amount of caffeine than espresso coffee. A dairy-free version of white chocolate is made from rice milk