After the treatment that cocoa beans have in their harvest zones, they are sent to the different chocolate factories.
The first step is roasting cocoa beans, which objective is to increase the aroma and favour the detachment of the seeds skin. This is a very important process for the final quality product. Cocoa beans are roasted during a few minutes at a temperature between 110ºC and 120ºC, eliminating humidity and acidity, and favouring aromas development. Each kind of bean that will belong to a certain chocolate mixture is roasted separately.

Then, cocoa beans are ground in mills at a constant temperature betwen 60ºC and 70ºC. Due to the grinding effect, cocoa butter is released from the cellular material (which has from 50% to 60% of this cocoa butter), generated by the friction. The result is a fluid but thick paste: the cocoa paste. Final chocolate taste depends on both cocoa quality and roasting and grinding process care.
Chocolate production has its final step in mixing  the cocoa paste and cocoa butter with sugar, refining the resultant composition.
Different kind of chocolates are made by modifying the proportions between their components, and by adding other products to the basic composition of cocoa paste, cocoa butter and sugar. They can be presented in bars or powder shape.

Dark chocolate - Dark chocolate (also called fondant chocolate, bitter chocolate or pure chocolate), is the chocolate strictly speaking, since it is the result of the mixture of cocoa paste and cocoa butter with sugar, without adding any other product (except flavoring and emulsifier). The proportions used for its production depends on the manufacturer. However, a dark chocolate must have a proportion of cocoa paste over 50% of the total product, since from that percentage is when the bitter cocoa taste starts to be noticeable. In any case, bars of dark chocolate can be produced with different cocoa proportions.

Drinking chocolate - Drinking chocolate is a mixture made of cocoa and sugar to which a small quantity of starch or flour is added, so that when it is boiled it gets thick. It is normally dissolved either in milk or water, and it is drunk as a hot drink. This is the most ancient known way of having drinking chocolate. It is a typical spanish product, consumed mainly and traditionally in Spain.

Milk Chocolate - Milk chocolate is the most popular derivative of cocoa. Its content in cocoa is between 25% and 40%. Apart from this, it includes cocoa butter, milk (normally in powder), and sugar.

White chocolate - White chocolate has a lack of cocoa paste in its composition, which is the matter that offers the cocoa properties. It is made of cocoa butter, milk and sugar. It is a sweet (it does not have a bitter taste) and extremely energetic product. Visually very attractive.