Minitalk

My name is Linnea, and i'm going to talk about chocolate, chocolates history, chocolate in europe, chocolate as we know it today and different types of chocolate.

Chocolate is a raw or processed food produced from seeds from the tropical tree THEOBROMA CACAO. The seeds have an intense bitter taste, and must be fermented to develop the flavor.

Cacao has been made for at least three thousand years. It started in Mexico, central and South America. The Mesoamerican people mixed cocoa with several seasonings to make a very spicy drink. Since that, chocolate has changed a lot, but it is still one of the world’s favorite flavors.

Chocolate was brought to Europe by Cortez, by this time they learned to make the drink better to European tastes by mixing the beans with sugar and vanilla. The first chocolate factories opened in Spain. The Spanish kept the source of the drink, which was the beans, a secret for many years. Chocolate was so expensive, that it was worth its weight in Silver. The Cocoa beverage made from the powder produced in Spain had become popular throughout Europe, in the Netherlands, Italy, France and Germany. Chocolate arrived in England in about 1520. The first Chocolate House in England opened in London in 1657. They were used as clubs where the wealthy business community met to smoke a pipe of tobacco and socialize over a cup of chocolate.

The Chocolate we talk about today was mainly made by these three events, 1828, 1847 and 1875: In 1828 a chemist invented a method of extracting the fat from cocoa beans. The result was a powder that didn’t taste that bitter. And with sugar, the taste was more similar to today. And in 1847 the method was used to make the first chocolate bar. In 1875 a Swiss man added milk, and made the first milk chocolate in the world.

There are many types of chocolate, with different tastes, shapes and types. The three most known chocolate types is milk chocolate, cark chocolate and white chocolate. But the white chocolate doesn’t contain cocoa from the bean, so it’s not really a chocolate. Other types of chocolate are milk chocolate with nuts, chocolate with raisins or with whisky.

The main ingredients in chocolate are cocoa mass, cocoa butter, sugar, milk powder and aroma.

Here are my sources!