I took a tour of Che’il Mayan Chocolate, which included an organic cacao farm and a tiny factory where they make chocolate. I am not sure it qualifies as a factory, but they make do make a small amount of chocolate there as well as some chocolate products like nibs, cocoa powder, and cacao tea. The tour was fascinating, and the following is a brief synopsis. It all starts off with a cacao tree.
Cacao tree
The beginning of the deliciousness that is chocolate starts with a tiny, little flower.
Cacao flower
When the flower is fertilized, a giant fruit or seed pod forms. The flowers bloom for months, and hence seed pods form and grow at different times.
Unripe cacao fruit or seed pod
The seed pods ripen to a yellow or red color depending on the specific cacao tree species.
Ripe cacao fruit or seed pods
Inside the seed pods are cacao beans covered in a white pulp. We got to take a bean and suck the pulp. The pulp was quite tasty with sort of a creamy, light fruit taste.
Cacao seed pod with beans covered in white pulp
The beans have a dark brown interior.
Cacao seed pods with beans covered in pulp in upper half and seeds we sucked pulp off of in lower half
The beans are first fermented in a box for several days. They are then roasted over low heat. In the photo below, the light beans (on the traditional Mayan grinding stone) are the beans that have not been roasted. The dark ones in the middle front bowl have been roasted. Cocoa butter is in the white bowl, and the bowl right in front of it are the shells from de-shelled beans. The shells are removed from the beans before roasting. After roasting the beans, they are ground into nibs, which can be seen in the bowl to the left of the cocoa butter.
Cacao beans
The nibs are placed on the stone and crushed.
Crushing cacao nibs
Crushing cacao nibs
The grinding motion with the stone pulverizes the nibs, and the pressure causes heat, which starts to melt the oils in the nibs. We got to taste it at this point, and the chocolate is rather bitter.
Crushing cacao nibs with liquid starting to form
After quite a bit of grinding of the nibs, only liquid remains. Sugar and cocoa butter is added.
Adding sugar and cocoa butter
The mixture is ground more to mix everything. We got to taste the finished chocolate at this point again. It definitely was sweeter with the sugar, but to me, it still had a bitter after taste.
Finished dark chocolate blend
The liquid is then poured into forms and allowed to harden. These were put into a fridge to harden quickly.
Pouring chocolate into forms
The finished product. The mixture made was 70% cacao. It tasted a bit different from the dark chocolate I have had before. It also melted very quickly in my hands compared to store bought chocolate, which must have stabilizers or something. Interestingly, even though this was the same mixture as what I tasted before it was poured into the forms, after cooling and hardening, it had lost most if not all of the bitter after taste that I tasted with the liquid.
Finished chocolate bars