As you can see, there are lots of steps to making chocolate, and I'm going to teach you all of them....

First step:

Harvesting

And it starts out like this

Chocolate actually starts out with beans which are called cacao beans. In this picture, you can see cacao pods hanging from a cacao tree. Inside the pods, there are the cacao beans. Though, they're not really beans, they're seeds but they look like beans, so we call them beans. So when we open them up, the seeds inside are slimy, so they need time to dry.....

Second step:

Fermentation

This is the long bit

When you open the pods, you see that the seeds are very slimy. Fermentation is when the slimy seeds become rough and more like seeds. It starts out with tiny pieces of yeast that, oh, blah, blah, blah, blah, blappiddy, balppiddy, blah!

In chocolate, fermentation is the process that creates aromas, bold flavor and rich color. There are two stages: alcohol and acetic fermentation. First, natural yeast converts the sugars in the cacao pulp into alcohol. Then bacteria oxidize the alcohol into acetic acid.

And I just got that from the internet...

Third step:

Drying

Drying is when the seeds are left to dry.

It's gonna take a while....

Nom, Nom, Nom

WHAT, CAN'T I EAT CHOCOLATE?!?!

I think it's done!

Forth step:

Roasting

Well, the seeds are raw, so they need to be cooked.

So the beans are cooked and then this and that and that and this an- and the- *yawn*

Sleeping

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        z

Fifth step:

Cracking and Winnowing

The process of removing the shell from the bean. If the shell wasn't removed, the chocolate would have a bitter and unpleasant taste. 

Sixth step:

Grinding and Conching