Classification of Chocolate

 

Chocolate originally came from the cocoa beans, the fruit of the wild cacao tree in the tropical rainforests of Central America. More than 1,300 years ago, the Yokotan Mayan Indians made a drink called chocolate from roasted cocoa beans. Early chocolate was a greasy drink. Because fried cocoa beans contained more than 50% oil, people began to add flour and other starchy substances to the drink to reduce its greasiness.

 

 

The Spanish explorer Hernán Cortes discovered in Mexico in the early 16th century that the local Aztec king drank a drink made from cocoa beans, water and spices. After tasting it, Cortes brought it back in 1528 Spain and planted cacao trees on a small island in West Africa.


The Spanish ground cocoa beans into powder, added water and sugar to it, and heated it to make a drink called "chocolate", which was very popular among the public. Soon its production method was learned by the Italians, and soon spread throughout Europe.
In 1642, chocolate was introduced to France as a medicine and consumed by Catholics.


In 1765, chocolate entered the United States and was praised by Benjamin Franklin as a "healthy and nutritious dessert."
In 1828, Van HOUTEN of the Netherlands built a cocoa press to squeeze out the remaining powder from the cocoa liquor. The cocoa butter pressed by Van HOUTEN was mixed with crushed cocoa beans and white sugar, and the world's first chocolate was born. After fermentation, drying and roasting, the cocoa beans are processed into cocoa liquor, cocoa butter and cocoa powder, which will produce a rich and unique aroma. This natural aroma is the main body of chocolate.


In 1847, cocoa butter was added to the chocolate drink to create the chewable chocolate bars we know today.


In 1875, Switzerland invented the method of making milk chocolate, resulting in the chocolate you see.


In 1914, World War I spurred the production of chocolate, which was shipped to battlefields and distributed to soldiers.
Chocolate is made from a mixture of ingredients, but its flavor mainly depends on the taste of the cocoa itself. Cocoa contains theobromine and caffeine, which bring a pleasant bitter taste; the tannins in cocoa have a light astringency, and cocoa butter can produce a fat and smooth taste. The bitterness, astringency, sourness of cocoa and the smoothness of cocoa butter, with the help of sugar or milk powder, milk fat, malt, lecithin, vanillin and other auxiliary materials, and through exquisite processing technology, the chocolate not only maintains the unique taste of cocoa but also Make it more harmonious, pleasant and palatable.

 

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