Crillo Beans from chocovic.es

The dried, fermented Cacao seeds are carefully shipped from their country of origin to the Chocolate manufacturing countries. It is very important to keep the seeds dry during shipment. (This adds to the shipping costs!) I would assume that moisture would encourage further fermentation and rotting... It is worth noting that, like coffee, all of the countries of origin are warm, tropical, and generally poor while the manufacturing countries are cool, northern and primarily and wealthy.

Once at the factory, the seeds are put in revolving drums roasters (or hot air rosters) to produce the roasted beans. (For Cocoa powder the seeds are roasted at 95 to 125 degrees Celsius for about an hour; for Chocolate bars they are roasted for a somewhat shorter time at a slightly lower temperature.) One hundred kilograms of harvested seed becomes 45 kilograms of roasted beans.

After roasting the beans are crushed, broken into tiny fragments called nibs. The fragments of the inner shell are removed from the nibs, usually by air currents. Some processors remove the shell before the first roast, to produce a different flavor. It is common to combine several different Cacaos to create a special "blend".

Then the nibs are finely ground. The finer and smoother this grinding, and the resultant mash, the higher quality the Chocolate will be, all other factors being equal. This paste is called the Liquor, Paste, Mass and a number of other things. Cacao is 54% fat (Cocoa Butter) so the Paste, is the consistency of thick cream!