|
The cocoa is being prepared from the seeds of the cocoa tree (Theobroma cacao). These trees grow mainly around the equator because of the warm climate. A couple of times a year this fruits are picked. The fruits are made open by slicing and within the fruit you can find the core with about 40 till 50 beans. The gathered beans are covered with banana leafs and as a result of this temperature will rice to 50°C. The result in this is that the present bacteria ferment the beans. This fermentation lasts about 5 days in which the germ of the cocoa bean is stopped growing and the bean changes colour from purple to brown. After this process the beans are dried in the sun or in drying houses. The next step is to make the cocoa liquor. Fermented, dry beans are successive cleaned, burned, broken, unshelled, burned again and finally milled, with a resulting paste (the liquor). This liquor can be further processed until cocoa powder. For doing this a substantially part of the fat is pressed out of the liquor. After this pressing a cake remains which can be milled very fine and this gives a cocoa powder. Analyses are possible on intermediary and end products such as fat, free fatty acids, pH, fineness, moisture, aflatoxin, ochratoxin, organoleptic research, cut-test. |
 Schematic reproduction |
 Beans inside the fruit |
 Cocoa beans and cocoa powder |
 A sliced cocoa fruit |