All About Chocolate

A Reading AZ Level R Leveled Reader

Word Count: 1,194

LEVELED READER R

All About
Chocolate

By Robert Charles

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U
O R

All About
Chocolate

Written by Robert Charles

Photo Credits:

Front cover, back cover, title page, pages 3, 4 (top left, top right, bottom right),
19: ArtToday; page 4 (center, bottom left): Artville; page 6: Wolfgang
Kaehler/CORBIS; page 7: L. Hobbs/PhotoLink/Getty Images; page 8: Issouf
Sanogo/AFP/Getty Images; page 9: Foodcollection/Getty Images; page 10:
Owen Franken/CORBIS; page 11: Stephanie Colasanti/CORBIS; page 12:
Edward Rozzo/CORBIS; page 13: (top) Rob Broek/iStockphoto, (bottom)
Christine Balderas/iStockphoto; pages 18, 20,: Learning AZ, Inc.; page
22: Burke/Triolo Productions/Brand X/CORBIS; page 23: Allen Johnson/
iStockphoto
Special thanks to Nadia Larsen of Choc-alot in Tucson, Arizona
(www.chocalot.com).

All About Chocolate

Level R Leveled Reader
Learning AZ, Inc.
Written by Robert Charles
Illustrations by Cende Hill
Map by Craig Frederick
All rights reserved.

www.readinga-z.com

www.readinga-z.com

Correlation
LEVEL R
Fountas & Pinnell
Reading Recovery
DRA

N
30
30

Table of Contents
Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
Where Chocolate Comes From . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
Preparing the Beans . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
From Beans to Chocolate . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
History of Chocolate. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
Chocolate Today . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
Try This! . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22
Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23

Introduction

Glossary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24

Ask people about their favorite sweet thing

to eat, and theyll probably say its chocolate.
People around the world love chocolate. They
love it so much that every year they eat more
chocolate than any other sweet.

Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24

Where Chocolate Comes From

It might surprise you to learn that
chocolate actually grows on trees. That
doesnt mean that you can pick a chunk of
chocolate from a tree branch and eat it. In fact,
the chocolate growing on trees looks, tastes,
and smells nothing like the chocolate you eat.
The tree that gives us chocolate is the cacao
(kah-KOW) tree. Chocolate comes from beans
that are found in large pods on the tree. Cacao
trees grow near the equator, where it is hot
and wet.
Where Chocolate Grows

Europe

Asia

Cacao trees grow in the wild, as well as on plantations.

N. America

Equator
S. America

Africa
Australia

The shaded areas of the map show where cacao trees grow close
to the equator, where it is hot.

Today, most cacao trees are grown on farms

called plantations. The trees have lots of small
white or yellow owers that bloom during the
year. Some of the owers change into pods,
but most do not.
6

The pods are shaped like little footballs.

The pods are green when they rst form, but
they change to a golden or reddish color as
they get ripe.

A harvester cracks open cacao pods to get at the seeds.

Preparing the Beans

These pods contain the beans that will be used to make chocolate.

Taking the pods from the cacao trees is

the rst step in making chocolate. But its
not the pods that are importantits the 20
to 50 beans found inside the pods, which are
actually the trees seeds. It takes a lot of beans
and a lot of work to make chocolate. First, the
pods are gathered. Then, someone using a
large blade called a machete (mah-SHET-ee)
cuts the pods open.
8

The beans are then scooped out of the open

pod. The beans are not brown, as you might
expect. Instead, they are cream colored and
covered with a soft pulp. These beans are a
long way from being the chocolate you know.

A worker spreads the cacao beans so they can dry and then
begin the fermentation process.

The pulp-covered beans are put into piles

or boxes and covered. As the beans come in
contact with the air, they begin to change from
a cream color to a purple color. The beans
also change on the inside in a process called
fermentation. Fermentation can take more
than a week, but the fermented beans still do
not taste or smell like chocolate.

This is what the inside of a cacao tree pod looks like.

10

After the beans have fermented, they are

dried. As they dry, the beans are turned. Once
the beans are dry, they are placed in large cloth
bags and shipped to makers of chocolate.

From Beans to Chocolate

Making chocolate from the fermented,
dried beans is a very long and complicated
process. First, the beans need to be cleaned,
which removes any remaining pulp or pieces
of the pods. Then, chocolate makers blend
different varieties of beans to make sure the
chocolate has just the right avor.
The cleaned and blended beans are roasted
in order to bring out the chocolate avor. This
is the stage when the
beans begin to smell
like chocolate. As the
beans are roasted,
the thin shell that
covers them grows
brittle. The beans
pass through a
special machine that
cracks their shells
and blows away the
pieces of shell with
fans.
Beans roast in giant drums
at a candy factory.

Workers spread cacao beans to dry in the sun.

11

12

After the shells are removed, only the

meaty part of the bean, called the nib,
remains. The nibs are ground up and crushed
until they become a liquid. The liquid is
poured into molds where it cools into bars of
bitter, unsweetened chocolate. The bars are
then pressed until the most important part of
the chocolate, a yellow liquid called cocoa
butter, is removed. The cocoa butter drains
through a screen and is collected to make the
chocolate we eat.

Word Origins

After the liquid cocoa butter is removed, the

solid part of the bar is ground into a powder.
Cocoa powder is sent to dairies and bakeries to
avor baked goods and dairy products.
The chocolate we eat is made in the nal
step, called conching (KONCH-ing). Conching
takes place in machines with big rollers. Sugar,
cocoa powder, cocoa butter, and other
ingredients are rolled and mixed until smooth.
The smooth mixture is poured into molds and
cooled. After it has cooled and solidied, the
chocolate is removed from the molds and
wrapped in packages for shipping.

Cacao or Cocoa?
When the products of the cacao
tree made their way to English-speaking
countries, the Spanish word cacao
became the English word cocoa. Writers
and speakers of English today still use the
word cacao when discussing the tree
and its owers, pods, and beans.
People usually use the word cocoa
when discussing the many products that
come from the beans.

1. Roasting

2. Shelling

13

14

3. Grinding

4. Molding

History of Chocolate

5. Conching

As near as historians can tell, Aztec and

Mayan people living in Central and South
America were using chocolate almost 2,000
years ago. These people enjoyed a drink made
from chocolate. But if you were to try this drink
today, youd nd that it tastes much different
from the chocolate drinks you enjoy. In fact, it
was a very bitter-tasting drinkkind of like
coffee.

6. Pouring

7. Cooling

Christopher Columbus brought some cacao

beans back from the New World to show to the
king and queen of Spain. But Europeans did not
know what to do with the beans, so they mostly
ignored them. They were more interested in
spices and other things Columbus brought back.

8. Wrapping

15

16

A Spanish explorer by the name of Hernando

Cortez helped Europeans begin to see that there
was value in cacao beans. The great Aztec ruler
Montezuma had served Cortez a drink made
from cacao beans. The Aztecs told Cortez that
it was the drink of the gods. They believed that
cacao beans gave them added wisdom and
strength. They placed so much value on cacao
beans that they used the beans as a form of
money. Cortez saw much more value in the
beans as money than as a drink. He planted
cacao trees so that the he could use the beans,
not for chocolate, but as money. It was his way
of growing money on trees.

Cortez brought back knowledge of how to

make the chocolate drink, but it still was not
popular outside the New World. Not until the
Spanish began mixing sugar with the drink did
chocolate begin spreading in popularity.
Until the 1600s and 1700s, chocolate was a
luxury food for royalty and powerful church
ofcials. But during the 1600s, people began
grinding large amounts of cacao beans in mills,
producing much more chocolate and lowering
the cost. The invention of smooth milk chocolate
also increased the treats popularity. The rst
chocolate shop in London, England, was opened
in 1657. In the 1700s, a steam-driven chocolate
grinder was invented, allowing factories to
quickly make tons of affordable chocolate.
Today, chocolate is a favorite and affordable
treat in many countries.

Chocolate is enjoyed with gusto by people of all ages.

17

18

Timeline
The first use of chocolate by people
in South and Central America

200

Chocolate used as money by people

of South and Central America

900
1502

Columbus brings cacao beans

back to Europe

1528

Hernando Cortez brings cocoa

beans and knowledge of how to
make a chocolate drink to Spain
A Frenchman opens the first
chocolate shop in London, England

1657

Cocoa press is invented

1828
1847
1875

Do You Know?

First solid chocolate bar is sold

A man in Switzerland makes and sells the
rst milk chocolate

Some specialty
shops sell
only chocolate
treats.

Milton Hershey establishes Hershey

Chocolate Company

1894
1913

Chocolate Today

Invention of a method for

making chocolates filled
with other sweets
2007

Recent medical studies show that there

are definite medical benefits in eating
chocolate. The benefits are linked to dark
chocolate, rather than milk chocolate. Some
of the medical benefits include a reduction
in heart disease and blood pressure.

World consumes over

3,000,000 metric tons of
cacao beans

19

Most of the chocolate made in factories

today is used to make chocolate candy. Other
chocolate goes into ice cream, chocolate drinks,
and baked goods such as cakes and doughnuts.
Even a sauce called mole (MOLE-ay), used in
Mexican cooking, is made from chocolate.
20

Each year people around the world

consume, or eat, tons of chocolate. The people
of Switzerland consume more chocolate per
person than anyone else in the world. They are
joined in their love of chocolate by people in
many other European countries. The table
below shows chocolate consumption in the top
ten chocolate-consuming countries.

yT

T
do

s!
i
h

Yummy Chocolate Brownies

Make sure you have an adult to help you

with any cutting or handling of hot foods.

1 Gather these ingredients:

1 cup butter or margarine
4 squares (1oz. each) of unsweetened
chocolate (also called bakers chocolate)
4 eggs
2 cups white sugar
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
11/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 teasp oon baking powder
pinch of salt

Top Chocolate-Consuming Countries

on a Per-Person, Per-Year Basis

2 Preheat the oven to 350F (180C). Rub grease

over a 9 x13-inch (15- cup) baking pan.

3 Melt the butter in a saucepan over medium heat

on the stovetop. After the butter is melted, take

it off the heat and stir in the chocolate until it is
melted and mixed in. Add the eggs one at a time,
stirring thoroughly. Then add the sugar and vanilla,
stirring the mixture until smooth.

4 In a separate bowl, mix the flour, salt, and baking

1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10

Switzerland ............... 22.4

Austria...................... 20.1
Ireland ...................... 19.5
Germany .................. 18.0
Norway .................... 17.9
Denmark ................... 17.7
United Kingdom......... 17.5
Belgium .................... 13.2
Australia ................... 13.0
Sweden .................... 12.9

lbs ....... 10.1

lbs ......... 9.1
lbs ......... 8.8
lbs ......... 8.2
lbs ......... 8.1
lbs ......... 8.0
lbs ......... 7.9
lbs ......... 6.0
lbs ......... 5.9
lbs ......... 5.8

kg
kg
kg
kg
kg
kg
kg
kg
kg
kg

21

powder. Gently pour the butter, chocolate, and

sugar mix into the flour and stir it until the flour
is completely wet.

5 Pour the mixture into the baking pan and spread

it evenly.

6 Bake for 25 to 30 minutes until the brownies begin

to pull away from the sides of the pan.

7 Let the brownies cool in the pan before you cut

them. Makes 12 brownies.

22

Glossary
cacao (n.)

the tree from which we get

chocolate (p. 5)

conching (v.)

powerfully mixing air into

a liquid (p. 14)

consume (v.)

eat or buy (p. 21)

fermentation (n.) a natural changing process that

occurs in many foods and
plants (p. 10)
ingredients (n.)

the different food items that go

into a dish or recipe (p. 14)

machete (n.)

a long, thick knife (p. 8)

mills (n.)

machines that use animal,

wind, or steam power to grind
things (p. 18)

mole (n.)

a spicy Mexican sauce made

with chile and strong
chocolate (p. 20)

plantations (n.)

large farms with many

workers (p. 6)

The next time you eat chocolate, think about how it was made.

Conclusion
It took a long time for chocolate to become
popular outside the regions of Central and
South America where cacao trees come from.
Over the years, people added things such as
sugar and milk to the long and complicated
process of making chocolate from cacao beans.
Today, people around the world eat millions
of kilograms of chocolate, making it the
worlds most popular sweet.
23

Index
cocoa, 13, 19
Columbus, Christopher, 16, 19
Cortez, Hernando, 17, 19
fermentation, 10

24

Mayans, 16
plantations, 6
pulp, 9, 12