How Chocolate is Made
All chocolate products begin with the Cacao Tree; Greek for “Food of the Gods”.  Standing 15-25 feet tall, the Cacao tree grows in tropical climates such as Western Africa, Central America, and parts of Asia.

A single cacao tree can bear up to 50,000-100,000 fruit pods in a single year. Pods are harvested and cut open for their seeds that  are removed and allowed to ferment for 3-9 days.  Once fermentation is complete the seeds are spread onto racks and left in the sun to dry.  In some cases they are dried mechanically.  When seeds dry, their moisture content is reduced from 60% to about 6%.   Dry seeds are shipped to chocolate processing factories in industrialized countries.

At chocolate factories the seeds are roasted, causing them to swell to the point where the shells burst, leaving just the bean behind.  These beans are known as “nibs.”  The nibs are then ground into a fine paste and mixed with cocoa butter.  This process produces a thick bitter liquid called ‘chocolate liquor.’  Chocolate liquor is then mixed with dairy solids, sugar, and additional flavors such as vanilla to produce the taste and quality of chocolate that we all know and love.  During the final processing chocolate is run through a conching machine that heats and stirs the mixture to make sure it’s smooth and not gritty.  The processed chocolate is then poured into a tempering machine to be cooled at a steady pace.

The result is delicious bulk chocolate that makes its way to Van Otis Chocolates for producing the wide range of treats our customers have come to enjoy for over 75 years.

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