From Fermented Drink to Smooth-textured Bars Our love of chocolate goes back at least 3000 years to South and Central America, where a fermented beer-like drink was made from the sweet, milky pulp surrounding the cacao beans. Later, the trees were grown by the Maya...

Dark Chocolate: Semisweet and Bittersweet Contains at least 35% cacao (aka chocolate liquor or ground cacao nibs) and no milk. If  labeled 60% cacao, it contains 40% other ingredients, mainly sugar. The terms are not standardized, so semisweet and bittersweet can be...

Only two raw materials go into making plain (dark) chocolate: cocoa beans (including additional cocoa butter from the beans) and sugar. In general, as cacao content goes up, sugar goes down, and usually the quality of the chocolate goes up as well, since that is what...

The cacao tree grows only in tropical rainforests 20 degrees north and south of the equator. The fruits are pods shaped like a shriveled football and sprout directly off the trunk of the trees, which grow 20-50 feet tall. Inside the pod is a sweet…

From long before Montezuma’s 50-cup-a-day habit in the 16th century to today’s obsession with varietal dark chocolate at any price, it’s obvious there’s something compelling and perhaps addictive about chocolate. Chocolate contains hundreds of chemical components,...

Chocolate is similar to wine – both have flavors that vary by source, growing conditions, proportions, blending, and processing of the raw ingredients – but as a solid, it requires different tasting strategies. First, make sure it is at room temperature. Notice the...

But there’s more to love about chocolate! Cacao beans are higher in antioxidants (by weight) than even green tea, red wine or prunes. Keep in mind that tea, fruit and wine all contain water, so a concentrated solid has an advantage. And it’s in the cocoa solids where...

The theobromine in chocolate is good for us, but not for our pets. It is toxic to dogs, cats, parrots and other domestic animals. Chocolate’s melting point – just below body temperature – is what makes it so irresistible when it slowly melts in the mouth (like a...

One legend of St. Valentine says he was a Roman priest killed on February 14, 270 for disobeying Emperor Claudius II’s prohibition of performing Christian marriages. Since then, the story goes, he became a saint for lovers. However, it is generally believed that the...