On cocoa plantations you will find an empirical know-how transmitted down through the generations. It is used for the harvesting techniques, the fermentation, and the drying. These age-old practices are still alive and well in the producing countries, and in no danger of disappearing, even if the scientific knowledge required to create the right conditions to grow the best possible produce also exists.
The transformation of bean to bar, on the other hand, follows a well-trodden, codified industrial process. The technological innovations developed by the major chocolate manufacturers over the nineteenth century gave chocolate the texture and aromas that we know today, light years away from the pre-Columbian chocolate made of grated cocoa, flavorings, and spices, and consumed as a drink. A quick overview of the significant names in the production of chocolate highlights François Louis Cailleur, the Swiss inventor of the chocolate bar in 1820; his compatriot, Philippe Suchard, who developed a mélangeur to combine sugar with cocoa; and then Charles-Amédée Kohler, yet another Swiss, who in 1831 put hazelnuts into the paste. Also around this time, Casparus Van Houten of the Netherlands extracted cocoa butter from the rest of the mass, which he ground to powder. In 1849, Henri Nestlé, a German pharmacist living in Switzerland, invented powdered milk and at the same time launched chocolate milk. But it is Rodolph Lindt to whom we owe two major discoveries in 1879: the conching technique and the addition of cocoa butter, both of which have given chocolate its now characteristic silky texture.
