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Harvest the beans
Pods containing cocoa beans grow from the trunk and branches of the cocoa tree. Harvesting involves removing ripe pods from the trees and opening them to extract the wet beans. The pods are harvested manually by making a clean cut through the stalk with a well sharpened blade. Ripe cocoa pods are harvested twice a year. -
Fermenting the chocolate
The first process cocoa beans are subjected to in making chocolate. The process usually lasts up to seven days. The pulp surrounding the cocoa beans is fermented by various microbes including yeasts, lactic acid bacteria, and acetic acid bacteria. -
Drying
There are two methods for drying beans - sun drying and artificial drying. For sun drying, the beans are spread out on mats, trays or on concrete floors in the sun. In some countries in the West Indies and South America drying takes place on wooden drying floors with moveable roofs. -
Roasting
Roasting accomplishing a number of things. It helps separate the outer husk from the inner bean and makes cracking and winnowing much easier. It also virtually sterilizes the cocoa bean. Various chemical reactions occur when cocoa beans are roasted and proper roasting is integral to good flavored chocolate. -
Cracking and Winnowing
The process of removing the outer shell from the cocoa beans. The pieces of cocoa bean meat or “nibs,” as they are called in the chocolate-world, fall through the chutes and into collection buckets and are ready for grinding. -
Grinding and Conching
The process involves heating and mixing for several hours to several days the ingredients of chocolate - cocoa, cocoa butter, sugar, lecithen and and any "flavoring" such as vanilla or essential oils. -
Tempering
Tempering is the process that re-establishes the cocoa butter crystals that are in real chocolate (versus compound chocolate). Chocolate, not unlike the description of water/ice, starts as a solid, then you melt it, turning it into a liquid