Celebrate Chocolate Day

Chocolate Day is a day to celebrate all things chocolate. It is well deserving of its own day of honour so celebrate today with some of the high-cocoa dark chocolate that makes you go tingly inside. Stock up on chocolate biscuits, ice-cream and enjoy a day of secret treats and indulgence.

Chocolate comes from the seed of the tropical Theobroma cacao tree. Cacao, which has been cultivated for at least three millennia, is grown in Mexico, Central America and Northern South America. The earliest known documentation of the use of cacao seeds, is around 1100 BC. The cacao tree seed have a very intense bitter taste that must be fermented to develop the flavour.

Once the seeds have been fermented, the beans are then dried, cleaned and roasted. After roasting, the shell is removed to produce cacao nibs. The cacao nibs are then ground into cocoa mass which is pure chocolate in raw form. The cocoa mass is usually liquefied then moulded with or without other ingredients, it is called chocolate liquor. The chocolate liquor may then be processed into two components: cocoa solids and cocoa butter.

Here is some fun facts you probably did not know about chocolate:

• A jewel thief stole 28 million dollar’s worth of gems in 2007 because he was able to gain the trust of the guards working the bank in Antwerp, Belgium by repeatedly offering them chocolate.

• At one point the Nazis plotted to assassinate Winston Churchill with an exploding bar of chocolate.

• There are over 600 flavour compounds in chocolate, while red wine has only 200.

• During the Revolutionary War soldiers were sometimes paid in chocolate.

• In 2004 studies in London found that 70 per cent of people would reveal their passwords in exchange for a chocolate bar.

(source: nationaldaycalender and buzzfeed)