COCOA BEAN
Cocoa Bean is the dried and fully fermented fatty seed of Theobroma cacao. It is found in cocoa pods, which grows on trees of
Africa and Central & South America. It has a rough leathery rind about 3 cm thick, filled with sweet, mucilaginous pulp, which is enclosed with 30 to 50 large seeds. These seeds are fairly soft and pale pink or lavender in color. The eight largest cocoa-producing countries at present are Ivory Coast, Ghana, Indonesia, Nigeria, Cameroon, Brazil, Ecuador and Malaysia.
Cocoa Bean Processing
The basic extraction process of the Cocoa bean includes various steps that are seed cleaning, de-stoning, roasting, decortication, and cocoa's nib expelling. After the end of these processes, cocoa butter is acquired, which is filtered to get the resultant product.
The processing of raw cocoa beans into cocoa mass has to go through number of different stages. First raw cocoa beans are fermented and dried & then it is cleaned to remove undesired waste particles. Then the following steps are followed:
Cocoa Bean is the dried and fully fermented fatty seed of Theobroma cacao. It is found in cocoa pods, which grows on trees of
Africa and Central & South America. It has a rough leathery rind about 3 cm thick, filled with sweet, mucilaginous pulp, which is enclosed with 30 to 50 large seeds. These seeds are fairly soft and pale pink or lavender in color. The eight largest cocoa-producing countries at present are Ivory Coast, Ghana, Indonesia, Nigeria, Cameroon, Brazil, Ecuador and Malaysia.Cocoa Bean Processing
The basic extraction process of the Cocoa bean includes various steps that are seed cleaning, de-stoning, roasting, decortication, and cocoa's nib expelling. After the end of these processes, cocoa butter is acquired, which is filtered to get the resultant product.
The processing of raw cocoa beans into cocoa mass has to go through number of different stages. First raw cocoa beans are fermented and dried & then it is cleaned to remove undesired waste particles. Then the following steps are followed:
- Cocoa beans are mixed into desired blend
- These are then fragmented and stripped off their husks. After this process, we get the inner part of the seed which is known as 'nib'
- The cocoa bean nibs are heat treated to remove possible bacteria
- These are subsequently roasted and grounded into a liquid cocoa mass
- The nibs are alkalized before, during or after the roasting process to determine the colour and taste of the cocoa mass
