World Chocolate Day 2021

Every year on July 7th, World Chocolate Day allows chocolate lovers around the world to indulge in their favorite treat without any guilt. The day also celebrates all kinds of goodies made from chocolate, including chocolate milk, hot chocolate, chocolate candy bar, chocolate cake, brownies, or anything covered in chocolate.

Chocolate comes from the seed of the tropical Theobroma cacao tree. Cacao has been cultivated for at least three millennia and grows in Mexico, Central America, and Northern South America. The earliest known documentation of using cacao seeds is from around 1100 BC.

Since cacao tree seeds have a very intense, bitter taste, they must be fermented to develop the flavor. Once fermented, processors dry, clean and roast the beans. After roasting, the shell is removed to produce cacao nibs.

The cacao nibs are then ground into cocoa mass, which is pure chocolate in rough form. The cocoa mass is usually liquefied, then molded with or without other ingredients. At this point in the process, it is called chocolate liquor. The chocolate liquor gets processed into two components: cocoa solids and cocoa butter.