If you ever seen a cocao bean, you know it is hard to believe all the delicious things come from this brown bean. It is the most important ingredient in the boxes of chocolate you get at holiday candies. It can be a chocolate Easter egg, tasty bear or Santa. Variables of chocolate forms and tastes are only limited by the fantasy of the master chocolatier who blends and molds the chocolate. The world’s most renowned sweet come from a little bean known as cocao. The cocao bean, often confused with the “coco” bean because of an early spelling error from English traders. Way of cocao bean comes from Mexico, Venezuela and Ecuador. Cocao beans discovered in South America by Indians in 1500 B.C. in the center of the cocao fruit. Pods are pulled from the trunk of the cocao tree and the beans are scooped out. Beans are fermented and dried, they are cleaned, roasted and hulled. The shells of the bean are removed and the remaining contents are blended to produce different colors and flavors. Nibs are then ground until the cocao butter is released. Heat from the grinding process causes this mixture of cocao butter and finely ground nibs to melt and form a free-flowing substance known as chocolate liquor. From there, different varieties of chocolate are produced. Raw unprocessed chocolate is not suitable for eating. Take my word for it. If someone offers you unprocessed chocolate, just decline. R. Lindt discovered conching, it is a process of rolling and kneading chocolate substance to give it a richer quality that chocolate is known for today. What a genius. Now that I know who is responsible for making the bean into smooth creamy chocolate, I will bless his when I have cooking some chocolate recipe!