The basics of fine chocolate
A quick guide to fine chocolate and what makes
it different to other chocolate confections you
may have been eating!
Use these links to skip to the sections:
Where chocolate comes from
Chocolate originates from Central America. It
was revered as a commodity and sacred drink by
the native population of these regions - the Olmecs,
Maya and Aztecs (in rough chronological order).
Chocolate is made from a fruit native to the
Central American and Amazon rainforests called
Theobroma
cacao – ‘the food of the gods’. Perhaps
three thousand years ago the indigenous population
learnt to collect, store, dry, roast and grind
the seeds
of this fruit
to form basic chocolate, using techniques commonly
applied to other local spices and crops. From this
rough cocoa mass, they made a range of drinks,
often mixed with maize and spices, including vanilla
chilli and allspice. Most of these drinks were
not sweetened, or if so only with honey.
Aztec and Spanish chocolate
By the time of the Aztecs chocolate became highly
regarded and was only usually drunk by members
of the aristocracy. It was considered so precious,
and so important in Aztec religious beliefs that
it was too valuable for most to consume and the
beans were in fact used as money. The Aztecs inhabited
what is now Mexico where cacao does not grow, so
had
to import their cacao as tribute from their conquests.
They were very conscious of the quality and origin
of these imports.
After the conquest, the Spanish adopted many Aztec
habits, and drinking chocolate was not the least
of these. They brought chocolate back to Europe
where it gradually gained in popularity both as
a drink and as a flavouring ingredient in baking
and patisserie, alongside sugar.
Chocolate bars
The chocolate we know, in solid form, is a modern
industrial invention dating back to the end of
the 19th century. It took steam powered machinery
to successfully process cocoa and produce a fine
enough substance that could be transformed into
a fluid state, that when combined with sugar and
other ingredients such as milk powder and vanilla
could be set in moulds to form bars. Only now are
we regaining the sense the Aztecs had of quality
and origin of the cocoa beans used to make our
chocolate.
How chocolate is made
Coming soon ...
Not all chocolate is the same
...
Coming soon ...
Spotting fine chocolate
Coming soon ...
