Here we find our raw material, cocoa, having its historical origin in Mesoamerica (present-day Mexico and Guatemala) and having spread over time to Brazil, Venezuela, Colombia, the Philippines and various nations of Africa (Nigeria, Ivory Coast, Ghana) and Asia. The cocoa pod , called “Pineapple” in Africa and “Maraca” in America, contains the cocoa seeds or beans covered by a white and viscous pulp. When the right time for collection arrives, the pod gets a reddish tone. This can also be checked with a characteristic sound you get when you hit it. Harvested pods are cut open and the beans are separated from the pulp. These beans undergo a process (called ‘beneficiado’ in Spanish) that transforms them into the cocoa beans available to the industry.

Cocoa beans undergo a cleaning and selection process. They’re then roasted, removing possible moulds and ferments and enhancing their aroma. They’re then winnowed and possible impurities are removed.
Finally, the cocoa beans, perfectly clean and roasted, are ground to obtain the cocoa paste, the base of the chocolate industry.

Cocoa paste follows two different processes depending on the final product we want to obtain — chocolate or cocoa powder:

• • For chocolate production, cocoa paste is mixed with cocoa butter, powdered sugar and different aromatic products. For milk chocolate, this rich food is added in different quantities.

Once the mixtures have been prepared, a very fine paste is obtained by refining them. This paste passes later to the ‘Concha’ — a huge cask where the paste is removed slowly at a temperature between 50 and 60 °C, obtaining the mixture that finally acquires the characteristic taste and aroma of chocolate. The resulting fine paste is then cooled and reheated, crystallising the fat it contains and obtaining that shine that gives chocolate its gastronomic appeal.

After this laborious process, our rich food is moulded in different shapes and portions, packaged and stored for proper preservation until it gets to the hands of the consumer.

• In contrast, for the processing of cocoa powder, the natural acidity of cocoa paste is eliminated first with the alkalinisation process. It is then pressed using high pressure and temperature, extracting the fat from the cocoa paste and reducing the paste to a kind of cake that is then passed to the “mill” for milling. Thus, regular or fat-reduced cocoa powder is obtained, from which Clavileño cocoa powder will be manufactured, adding sugar and flour according to formulations.