Costa Rica: the Chocolate

Now, like most of the planet, I quite like chocolate, especially dark chocolate. We were lucky enough to be shown where they grow cacao, how they make chocolate, and how chocolate tastes at every stage of production. It was a very informative session and it was really cool to see how cacao transforms from a bean to a heavenly drink or delicious treat.

Our chocolate tour started with cacao. Below is what it looks like on the tree, ready to be harvested.

This is our guide with an unripe cacao bean.

The small white flowers on the cacao tree are buds that have to be artificially pollinated so the cacao yield will be higher. 

This is a diagram of all the steps the cacao has to go through before becoming either cocoa powder or a chocolate bar.

The first step in making chocolate is to open the cacao pod. Inside are little beans held together with a rather disgusting-looking membrane. They are also covered in this white goo. When chocolate was first being made, people had to suck on the beans to get the white good off and to provide the bacteria for fermentation. I was a little hesitant at first because the white goo didn't look very appetizing, but it actually had a nice flavor.

After the beans are cleaned, they are set out for a week to ferment.

Once they have been fermented, they can be roasted to remove excess moisture. Below is a roasted cacao bean.

At this stage you can crush the bean in your hand. The crushed bean at this stage is called "nibs." Because no sugar has been added, it is extremely bitter and does not taste like chocolate.

The guide was actually making cacawa, the chocolate drink of the Mayan civilization. So the next step is to grind the nibs with a mortar and pestle.

To make cacawa, you mox the ground nibs with pure cane sugar and cinnamon. The heat from the mortar and pestle (above) or grinder (below) make the mixture into a paste.

At this stage, the chocolate is extremely rich, but this was one of my favorite forms of chocolate that we tried. It is very pure and very delicious!

To make cacawa, you mix the chocolate mixture with hot water or hot milk to essentially make hot chocolate. But let me tell you, it's hard to go back to Swiss Miss after having "the drink of the gods."

Above and below are two different methods of mixing and frothing the drink, which was important because the froth looks like clouds, which elaborate on the idea that this is a heavenly drink.

I added nutmeg to the finished product, and it was amazing.

If you want to make chocolate bars or cocoa powder, you either add milk and sugar or remove all of the moisture. 

That should be everything you ever wanted to know about how to make chocolate!