A cocoa bean picked from the tree does not taste like chocolate at all. Fresh cocoa beans taste very bitter and harsh, and the flavor we know develops later, inside the bean. Workers pick only ripe cacao pods, by hand, using knives, and they take the beans out of the pod by hand as well. Inside the pod, each bean is wrapped in a juicy white pulp. That pulp turns out to matter, because it feeds the living things that begin the work of making chocolate taste like chocolate.

During fermentation, enzymes inside the bean break proteins into peptides and amino acids, and these become flavor ingredients that turn into aromas when the beans are roasted. Some chocolate makers go further and say that without fermentation cacao would have no flavor at all. Fermenting makes aroma precursors, chemicals that later turn into aromas during roasting. Yeasts and bacteria in the pulp supply the heat and acid that set this chemistry going. The pile of beans heats up to about 45 to 50 degrees Celsius, and the warmth comes from the work of tiny living things in the pulp.

A fermenting pile needs tending. Beans are turned during fermentation, usually around 48 and 72 hours in, because turning lets in air and makes the fermentation more even across the whole pile. Then the beans are dried and roasted. Roasting makes the shells of the beans loosen, and the shells are removed. What is left is the nib, the meat of the bean, which is what chocolate is made from. The nibs are ground into a thick paste called cocoa liquor, which has no alcohol in it, and rolling makes the liquor smoother.

Conching is a long stirring and heating step that follows roasting and grinding. It can last from three hours to three days, and longer is not always better. It drives off water, acid and harsh flavors. It also breaks cocoa solids and sugar crystals into tiny pieces, so the chocolate feels smooth and creamy in the mouth rather than gritty. The long stirring is why good chocolate does not feel gritty.

Gummy candy shows a different kind of control. Its chew comes from gelatin, a protein from animals that turns a sugary liquid into a soft gel. The amount of gelatin in a gummy sets how chewy it is and how long it takes to dissolve in the mouth, and candy makers can tune both. They also add acids such as citric, lactic and malic acid. These give sour flavor, balance the sweetness and change the acidity of the mix, which affects the texture. Sweeteners matter as well, since sucrose gives the main sweetness and corn syrup stops other sugars from forming crystals that would make the candy gritty.

The mixing alone takes time. Mixing the ingredients for a batch of gummies takes one to three hours, and then the batch goes to a quality control lab before it is formed. The shaping uses starch. Gummy candy is shaped in trays of starch, and the candy mix is poured into dents pressed in the starch. The starch keeps the candy from sticking, and after the gummies set, a machine tips the tray over a vibrating screen to shake off the loose starch.

Sugar can hurt teeth, so brush twice a day with fluoride toothpaste.

Sugar itself can behave in two ways, and good candy making is partly about choosing between them. Hard candy is cooked very hot and then cooled quickly into a hard, brittle solid, and its sugar stays in a glass, not in crystals. Fudge goes the other way. Fudge is a crystalline candy. The cook brings sugar syrup to the soft ball stage, then cools and stirs it at the right time so that many tiny crystals form, which gives a smooth texture. A candy maker also chooses how hot to cook the syrup: a cooler syrup makes soft candies like fudge, and the hottest makes crunchy candies like brittle and lollipops.

The first candy in history was probably made with honey, and one account says that people in ancient Egypt mixed honey with sesame seeds to make what may be the first candy. In India, people learned to boil sugarcane juice into solid sugar, and around 250 C.E. sugar candy was made there, shaped like animals and people. In Europe, sweets and chocolate were mostly for rich people, because sugar was expensive. Candy making grew into big business in the 1800s, when the Industrial Revolution brought machines that could make a lot of candy.

Words to know

• enzymes: helper proteins
• conching: long stirring
• gelatin: gel protein
• crystals: ordered sugar bits
• fermentation: change by microbes