How to Make Chocolate

We made chocolate while we in La Y. Clara, the German volunteer, showed us how to do it.

It's a fun process, and a lot more work than I thought!

Here's how you get chocolate:

First you have a cacao tree. They are native to the tropic regions of the Americas, and only grow within 20 degrees of the equator.

There are wild cacao trees growing all over the area around La Y.

Cacao pods, not fully ripened.

Ripe cacao pods are yellow. Inside, the cacao beans are covered in a white fruity pulp.

The pulpy beans sit for a few days while the while pulp ferments, a necessary process. Supposedly it removes the bitter taste.

(this picture taken from the internet)

Then, the beans are laid out to dry for at least a week, preferably in the sun.

When it's not rainy, we've seen piles of cacao beans drying like this in Quininde.

(this picture taken from the internet)

Beans after being dried.

The beans are roasted for about an hour. Then the thin brittle shell of each bean is removed. We did this process by hand. It took a long time.
Roasting turns them a nice dark color and brings out the chocolate smell and flavor.
You put the beans into a grinder like this, crank the handle....

....and you get this! Chocolate!

{I'm sure the Hershey factory uses a much more refined process.}

It was fun to make, but in the end the chocolate tasted like burnt wood. When we made hot chocolate with milk and tons of sugar, it wasn't too bad!