Special Feature: Products Sally Recommends Let's take a very
quick look at the chocolate making process before proceeding
with our tasting. The fruit of the cocoa tree produces
chocolate. The fruit is a pod slightly similar in appearance to
an acorn squash, containing lots of small fleshy white beans
rather like almonds in size and shape. They are encased in a
white mucilage and aligned along a spine-like membrane called
the placenta. The cocoa pods are carefully harvested by hand,
cracked open and the beans removed. The beans ferment in a pile
or box and start the process that helps to develop the
characteristic flavour, color, aroma and taste of chocolate. The
beans are then dried in the sun or a shed depending on the
season until they have reduced in weight about 50% and retain
only 6 – 8% humidity. They are then bagged and shipped to the
chocolate maker. After arriving at the factory, the beans are
carefully roasted and winnowed to remove the outer skin. The
skin is discarded leaving what is referred to i