The Story of Chocolate

Chocolate grows on trees. 
To make chocolate, cocoa farmers crack open the pods, scoop out the seeds, ferment them and dry them. The cocoa "beans" that form the basis of chocolate are actually seeds from the fruit of the cacao tree, which grows near the Equator. The seeds grow inside a pod-like fruit and are covered with white pulp. The beans are shipped to factories, where manufacturers inspect and clean them, then roast and grind them into a paste called chocolate liquor. More pressing, rolling, mixing with sugar and other ingredients, and heating and cooling yields delicious chocolate.
The cacao bean begins life primarily in remote areas of West Africa, Southeast Asia and Central and South America. These delicate, flower-covered trees need much tending and, when farmed using sustainable methods, grow in harmony in tropical forests beneath other cash crops such as bananas, rubber or hardwood trees. Grown on small family farms, the beans leave cocoa farms by hand, in carts, on donkeys or rugged trucks to be sold to a local buyer and then to processors abroad.

Once in the factory, they are ground, pressed, heated and stirred to create luxurious chocolate.

Humans’ love affair with chocolate began at least 4,000 years ago in Mesoamerica, in present-day southern Mexico and Central America, where cacao grew wild. When the Olmecs unlocked the secret of how to eat this better seed, they launched an enduring phenomenon.

The making of chocolate has evolved into an industry so large that 40 to 50 million people depend on cocoa for their livelihoods.