The word chocolate excites the mind and heightens the senses if you're a chocolate lover. Most of us have grown up enjoying chocolates but a very few of us know the origin and facts about it. Being a chocolate lover, I'd like to explore the world of chocolates beginning with the history of its myriad forms of recipes. Chocolate is a processed food made from the cocoa bean found in pods growing from the trunk and lower branches of the Cacao tree, which is found in abundance in the tropical rainforests of the northern Amazon basin. A cacao tree that can produce close to two thousand pods every year was discovered some 2000 years ago. The pods of this tree contain seeds encased in a sticky white pulp which is both sweet and tart. Unprocessed seeds are incredibly bitter and has to undergo a process of fermentation that changes the bitterness and the flavors to more edible form. The beans are then dried and shipped to be processed into tasty treats.
