All About Chocolate

All About Chocolate, written by Robert Charles.

《巧克力全知道》，作者：罗伯特·查尔斯

Introduction. Ask people about their favorite sweet thing to eat, and they'll probably say it's chocolate. People around the world love chocolate. They love it so much that every year, they eat more chocolate than any other sweet.

引言 问问大家最爱吃的甜食是什么，他们多半会回答巧克力 全世界的人们都喜爱巧克力 大家太爱吃巧克力了，每年吃下的巧克力比其他任何甜食都多

Where Chocolate Comes From It might surprise you to learn that chocolate actually grows on trees. That doesn't 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 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.

巧克力从哪里来 你可能会惊讶，巧克力其实长在树上 这可不是说你直接从树枝摘一块巧克力就能吃哦 实际上，树上长的原料和你吃的巧克力，外观、味道、香气完全不一样 出产巧克力的树叫做可可树 巧克力来自可可树大果荚中的豆子，也就是可可豆 可可树生长在赤道附近，那里终年又热又潮湿

Today, most cacao trees are grown on farms called plantations. The trees have lots of small white or yellow flowers that bloom during the year. Some of the flowers change into pods, but most do not.

如今，大多数可可树都种植在叫做种植园的农场上 可可树一整年都会开出许多小小的白色或黄色花朵 只有一部分花会结出果荚，大部分花都不会结果

The pods are shaped like little footballs. The pods are green when they first form, but they change to a golden or reddish color as they get ripe.

可可果荚长得像小小的橄榄球 果荚刚长出来时是绿色的，成熟后会变成金色或者红棕色

Preparing the beans. Taking the pods from the cacao trees is the first step in making chocolate. But it's not the pods that are important. It's the 20 to 50 beans found inside the pods, which are actually the tree's 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 cuts the pods open.

处理可可豆 从可可树上摘下果荚是制作巧克力的第一步 不过重要的不是果荚本身 重要的是果荚里20到50颗可可豆，它们其实是可可树的种子 制作巧克力需要很多可可豆，也要花费很多功夫 首先，我们要收集果荚 接着，工人会用叫做弯刀的大刀把果荚切开