A: The core raw materials of chocolate are cocoa butter and cocoa powder. After fermentation, baking, peeling and other treatments, cocoa beans are ground and pressed into "cocoa pulp", also known as "cocoa liquid block" Cocoa pulp can be separated into cocoa butter and cocoa powder, and then further processed into other foods.

Different kinds of chocolates.

Typical chocolate requires adding cocoa butter to the cocoa paste. In other words, there is more cocoa butter in chocolate than in cocoa pulp. In addition, some chocolate varieties will also add milk or milk powder, and other ingredients such as sugar. The combination of different raw materials forms all kinds of chocolates.

As an oil, cocoa butter is the source of chocolate's unique taste. Polyphenols and other trace components in cocoa powder have made great contributions to the flavor of chocolate. Of course, there are many aroma substances in cocoa butter, because cocoa powder contains polyphenol compounds, and typical chocolate is black and has a certain bitter taste. Therefore, "dark chocolate" is authentic and has the strongest "chocolate flavor", but its flavor is not necessarily the best.

Milk chocolate is another big family. It is made of powdered milk or condensed milk instead of cocoa butter. In the United States, milk chocolate is legally required to contain more than 10% cocoa pulp, while in the European Union, it requires at least 25% cocoa powder-later, it was revised to be as low as 20% in Britain and Ireland, but in other EU countries, this kind of chocolate can only be called "family milk chocolate". In other words, milk chocolate contains far less cocoa butter than dark chocolate. Even if it is both "milk chocolate", the content of cocoa powder produced in the United States is far lower than that produced in the European Union, and even domestic products such as Canada and Japan are higher than those produced in the United States.

White chocolate does not contain cocoa powder at all, but is mainly the product of sugar, milk and cocoa butter. The United States, the European Union and Japan all require that the content of cocoa butter in white chocolate be no less than 20%.

There are more kinds of chocolate than this, and the legal names and requirements of different countries are also different. In short, it is different combinations of raw materials such as cocoa powder, cocoa butter, milk and sugar.

In addition to these raw materials, the most noteworthy is "cocoa butter substitute". Cocoa butter is more expensive, so there is a market for finding cheap substitutes, and palm oil is coming in handy. Like cocoa butter, it is an oil with high saturated fat. Through some industrial means, such as hydrogenation and separation, palm oil can be used to obtain oil with physical properties close to cocoa butter, which is called "cocoa butter substitute". Lower-grade cocoa butter substitutes may be made from ordinary hydrogenated vegetable oil. In taste, cocoa butter substitute can be confused with the real one, but it has no inherent flavor of cocoa butter. In addition, hydrogenated vegetable oil contains some trans fats, which makes it more "low-grade". According to China standard, if the cocoa butter used in fruit chocolate exceeds 5%, it must be marked.