Chocolate

The process needed to transform the cacao bean (cocoa in English) into that smooth, delicious end result known as chocolate is long and complicated, and the block of chocolate, so ubiquitous now, was not perfected until the 1840s. The beans are fermented, dried and roasted, and the exposed nibs ground with water to make chocolate liquor. From this comes cocoa butter, as well as a paste that can be dried to make cocoa powder. It is cocoa butter, combined with ground beans and other ingredients such as sugar, that produces chocolate.