This is by far the most popular and widely consumed type of chocolate in the world. Its existence came about due to the diligence of a chocolatier called Daniel Peter in the 1870s. He was searching for a way to combine milk with cocoa to make a creamy, pale chocolate that was less bitter than the dark chocolate of the time. He tried and failed to successfully combine these two ingredients and realised that it was because of the water content of milk. Adding water to chocolate proved to be disastrous but he plodded on, determined to find a solution. After almost eight years of failed experiments I would have been tempted to just give up and accept that there was no answer to the problem. However, luckily for us, he carried on his quest and eventually succeeded by using condensed milk. It didn’t take long for this new creamy variety to gain a popular following. Nowadays, it is made using either condensed milk or milk powder.
As with other varieties, milk chocolate can vary greatly in its composition and flavour. Different guidelines apply in different countries and this too can have a big impact on the taste of the chocolate. In America milk chocolate has to have a minimum of 10% cocoa solids, whereas in Europe this amount is 25%. This means that sugar and milk solid levels vary accordingly. People do tend to get a taste for the particular chocolate that’s available to them. Of course, chocoholics have a taste for all chocolate.
It’s time to talk about the main types of chocolate now and I’m going to start with the purists’ choice – dark chocolate. And why is it the purists’ choice you might well ask? Basically, dark chocolate has the most amount of cocoa solids and therefore the most actual ‘chocolate’ in it. The higher the cocoa solids in a bar of chocolate, the better the quality and, if you like your chocolate authentic, you should be looking at choosing something with at least 70% cocoa content. You also know that if there’s plenty of cocoa in there, there isn’t going to room for much else. Dark chocolate doesn’t have any milk or milk powder in it either so you get more of a true chocolate flavour. However, this isn’t to everyone’s taste, as it can be quite bitter. Also, you need to remember that if the cocoa solids are high then there’s going to be less sugar, which will again make the chocolate taste bitter.
There is a huge taste difference between a good quality dark chocolate and a cheap milk chocolate bar and many people really don’t like the taste of the good stuff. Personally I think this is more to do with conditioning than flavour. We’re so accustomed to the almost sickly sweet taste of everyday chocolate that it’s difficult to get our taste buds round the bittersweet taste and brittle texture of dark chocolate. Once you’ve adjusted your expectations, you’ll soon appreciate what you’ve been missing out on. That’s not to say there isn’t a place for the everyday variety – it’s still chocolate isn’t it?
For a contrast I thought I’d now mention a South American producer. Despite their first forays into cocoa production, they’re not such prolific growers these days. Venezuela isn’t even the biggest South American producer (that accolade goes to Brazil) but I chose this country, as it’s renowned for its extremely high quality cocoa.
Venezuela did, at one time, claim the title of the world’s biggest cocoa producer but that was way back in the seventeenth century and a lot has changed since then. The beans grown are the Criollo variety and these are said to be the finest in the world. This makes Venezuelan cocoa extremely sought after by prestigious chocalatiers creating fine chocolate products. It’s the South American countries generally that specialise in growing this variety and, as it’s not so easy to cultivate as other varieties it tends to be grown with less abundance. As there is a finite stock of beans in Venezuela, producers will often sell an entire harvest to one chocolaiter directly, saving the hassle and price of going through a middle man. There doesn’t seem to be any shortage of buyers, as the quality tends to speak for itself.
There has also been something of an organic revolution in Venezuela of late with a number of farmers opting to grow their trees organically. These beans can command a far higher price and, again, this appeals to the more high-end chocolatiers with an upmarket clientele. Now I love a good bar of chocolate but when desperation calls, I’m just as happy with a cheap brand from the corner shop as a box of handmade chocs!
Well I thought it was about time that we took a closer look at some of the biggest chocolate producing countries. As Ghana produces somewhere in the region of one-quarter of the world’s cocoa beans, I figured this would be a good place to start. Cocoa is an extremely important part of the country’s economy and it has been grown here since the mid 1900s. Ghana was at one time the world leader in terms of cocoa production but it was hit by a dramatic drop in prices on the world market in the 1970s. This forced many producers to abandon cocoa production altogether in favour of more lucrative crops. However, as prices stabilised and production was encourage, people have been tempted back to the wonderful cocoa tree and the country is back up to the top of world production.
One of the reasons for the success of Ghana in the cocoa production stakes is probably the fact that it produces some top-quality cocoa beans. Most of this is exported to other countries and made into chocolate. In fact, much of the cocoa produced around the world is grown for export: the countries that make the most chocolate don’t actually grow the trees themselves, as they don’t have the right climate. As with other African cocoa producers, most of the cocoa beans grown in Ghana are from smallholdings. There are somewhere in the region of two million cocoa farms in Ghana, which sounds like an incredible number but when you consider that most of them only produce a relatively small amount, it makes sense. Many farmers are at the mercy of fluctuating world prices and this can have a dramatic impact on their livelihood from one year to the next.
Unfortunately, chocolate production isn’t something that can really be done in a domestic kitchen very easily. It’s a shame as it would be great to be able to whisk up a batch of chocolate bars on demand. For the time being though, I think we’ll need to leave it to the experts and make do with flapjacks or muffins.
Chocolate production can either be large scale or it can be a more arty pastime, with individual recipes being created and perfected by chocolatiers and sold by the item. Generally speaking though, you’d need anything up to 600 cocoa beans to make 1kg of chocolate. Obviously, the better the quality, the more beans you’ll require, as a higher cocoa content means a better bar.
Once the beans have been shelled, ground and the liquor extracted, the other ingredients can be added to the mix. Again, the amounts will very much depend on the quality of the final chocolate product but it will be cocoa butter, sugar (for milk and white chocolate), vanilla for flavouring and some letchitin, which is an emulsifying that helps bind everything together. The product will now resemble chocolate as we know it but it still needs to be pressed, in order to refine it more and give it a nice smooth texture. There is one last process that many types of chocolate will have to endure and this is called ‘conching’. This is another type of pressing machine but much more laborious as it can sometimes take days to produce the required texture. However, it’s an important element of chocolate making, particularly in higher grade products, as it really determines the final flavour of the chocolate.
Obviously, cocoa beans are a pretty important ingredient in chocolate but what else is required to produce your favourite sweet treat? Well, this isn’t actually a straightforward question to answer and it really depends on the variety and quality of chocolate. Chocolate now takes on so many different forms that’s it’s possible to include any number of ingredients in a product and still classify it under the label of ‘chocolate’. However, for the purposes of easy reading, I’ll stick to the basics. There are pretty much just five main ingredients that are needed to create chocolate and here they are:
Cocoa liquor
Not to be confused with alcohol! This is the most important ingredient and the higher the liquor content, the better quality the chocolate is. Once the beans have dried, the shells are removed and the central part, or ‘nib’ is ground. This process produces a lot of heat so it melts and becomes the liquor. Dark chocolate has the highest amount of liquor so if you want a real chocolate hit; this is the variety to buy.
Cocoa butter
This is the residue from the pressing process and what is left once the liquor has been extracted. As well as being used for chocolate, it also makes a pretty good moisturiser.
Sugar
This is essential in order to turn the chocolate into a sweet treat. Without sugar chocolate has a very bitter taste, much loved by the Mayans and Aztecs but probably not as popular with modern sweet teeth.
Milk or milk powder (milk and white chocolate)
As the name ‘milk chocolate’ suggests, these types of chocolate will contain either milk or milk powder and this is what gives the chocolate its creamy taste and paler flavour. Dark chocolate retains some of the bitter characteristics of the cocoa but this is indiscernible in most brands of milk and white chocolate.
Vanilla
This is primarily added as a flavouring and is present in most bars of chocolate, to a greater or lesser extent. The combination of cocoa and vanilla is a pretty good one so I assume that it’s just one of those things that somebody tried, everybody liked and no one has changed since.
So, how exactly does a knobbly looking pod, filled with a load of little beans end up being a delicious bar of smooth, creamy chocolate? Well, there’s a pretty complicated process involved and I’m happy to leave it to the professionals and just enjoy the end results.
Cocoa pods are ready to pick when they’ve turned green. They have to be harvested at just the right time to ensure the correct amount of cocoa butter, which in turn will have a big impact on the final flavour of the chocolate. The seeds are removed from the pod, along with the rind and the rest of pod is tossed aside, no longer required. After harvesting comes fermentation and this is basically the process that separates the seeds from the pulp and begins the transformation into the more recognisable and usable cocoa beans. All the seeds and pulp are laid out on racks for a number of days. The pulp goes gooey and drains away, leaving behind the wonderful seeds. It’s at this stage that the seeds are promoted and can now be called ‘beans’. The beans then need to dry out completely before they can be used to create chocolate. This can be done naturally under the blazing sun, or artificially in big heated vats. Most producers choose the natural method and I have to say I like the idea of my cocoa beans having a bit of a sunbathe.
And now the beans are ready to safely stored before undergo a magical transformation into chocolate.
Despite originating in Central and South America, cocoa is now grown in a much larger area and the biggest producers are actually in West Africa. This is due to the expansion of production and the opening of new markets. It’s all down to supply and demand really and people will always want chocolate. It’s one of those products that works on two levels. It can be fantastically expensive and saved for an extremely special occasion or it can just be a simple treat – a bar of chocolate bought from the newsagents at the end of a busy day. For that reason, it will always be popular and it was necessary to find new areas to produce it. Currently, there are eight major cocoa producing countries in the world. They are:
Ivory Coast
Ghana
Indonesia
Brazil
Nigeria
Cameroon
Malaysia
Ecuador
There are obviously countless others but these are the big players and the ones that supply most of the world’s cocoa beans. Production does tend to change year on year and will very much depend on the climatic conditions and the harvest for that particular year. However, The Ivory Coast and Ghana tend to produce around half of all the cocoa, which is the equivalent to a whole lot of chocolate bars. It’s quite nice to know, however, that most of the cocoa produced in Africa is grown on relatively small farms, rather than huge plantations. These farms tend to be owned and run by families, ensuring that profits can be fed back into the family business.
Over the years the cocoa trees have merged and mingled in the process called cross-pollination and this has resulted in a diverse range of beans that have distinct characteristics. These produce a diverse range of flavours and are used for different types of chocolate production. There are three main varieties so we’ll just deal with these, as it’s nice and easy.
Forastero
This variety is relatively easy to grow, so it’s a popular choice and is by far the most widely grown cocoa tree. In fact, over 90% of the world’s cocoa comes from Forastero trees.
Criollo
This is the bees’ knees in cocoa terms and is known for its high quality beans. These trees don’t produce as many pods as the Forastero so it’s rarer. They are also prone to disease and take a bit more work to sustain. Chocolate connoisseurs would say it’s well worth the effort as the end result is discernibly better but obviously, this comes at a price. Criollo trees aren’t grown in many countries and Venezuela is one of the biggest growers.
Trinitario
This is pretty much a combination of Forastero and Criollo trees and, as you would expect, it combines the good bits of both, although it’s seeds are thought to be better quality than Forastero. It’s basically a good compromise between quantity and quality. The Trinitario is hardier than the Criollo and puts up more of a fight against diseases. To try and alleviate problems with disease and production, many plantations will have a variety of trees and even if they don’t, the trees themselves are rarely identical.
As we’ve already discovered, the cocoa tree is native to the forests of Central and South America, enjoying a hot, humid environment but also a little shade. It’s now grown in many more regions but it is still limited to a relatively thin area around the equator, as pretty specific conditions are required for the trees to thrive.
It’s a pretty sociable tree and prefers to grow alongside other trees and plants. It’s for this reason that cocoa plantations don’t always follow the traditional style of uniform rows of trees evenly planted in an exposed area of land. The cocoa tree is a bit more haphazard and I think that’s a nice touch. Despite this rather bohemian attitude, the tree is actually pretty fussy when it comes to climate. Shade is good, but not too much, likewise just the right amount of sun and rain are essential. People have tried to persuade the cocoa tree to settle in places that don’t fulfil its rather exacting standards but the tree just wouldn’t play ball. Quite right too I say – when you’re producing the raw ingredient for the world’s favourite treat you can afford to make a few demands.
In the wild, the trees can reach up to an incredible 20 meters in height, however, when they’re planted they tend to be a bit shorter than this, to enable workers to more easily reach the pods. Can you imagine the ladders you’d need to reach cocoa pods at the top of a 20-metre tree? You definitely would want to suffer from vertigo.