Real chocolate is made using cocoa beans, sugar and milk powder, depending on the type of chocolate that is produced.

The cocoa pod, harvested from the cocoa tree, is opened and the beans are taken out. The beans are put to ferment covered with banana tree leaves or in wooden boxes for 4 to 6 days, depending on the cocoa variety. Then, they are left to dry in the sun.  After drying, the beans are sent to factories where they are roasted and winnowed (their shell is removed).

The roasted beans are then milled into cocoa mass, which is sometimes called ‘liquor’. This word dates back to the times of alchemists. Indeed, the result of this process was a solid and a liquid phase, called liquor.

Part of the cocoa mass is crushed or pressed and this enables the solids (or cocoa powder) to be separated from the cocoa butter. The mass or liquor usually contains approximately half cocoa mass and half cocoa butter. This means that there is 50% cocoa butter in the cocoa bean.

• For dark chocolate, you mix cocoa mass, cocoa butter and sugar.
  
• To get milk chocolate, you blend cocoa mass, cocoa butter, sugar and milk powder.
• For white chocolate, you cannot use cocoa mass because it makes the chocolate become dark. So instead, you use cocoa butter, sugar and milk powder.