Before I begin, I must point out that this is not a regular blog post. This post aims to inform the reader of how chocolate is made, from bean to bar. I figured that if I talked so much about chocolate, but never explained just how it's made, this entire blog would be almost completely irrelevant. So now, let me begin explaining The Chocolate Process.
Note: Not all chocolatiers follow the same process. Many chocolatiers choose to add extra steps, such as aging their chocolate, or skip steps, such as conching. I decided to model my approach off of Dandelion's but tried to make an approximate process for all chocolatiers.
The cacao pod is grown on a tree, which bears around 60 pods per harvest. Usually, there are two harvests per year. although this may vary. There is a primary harvest, during the dry season, from October to March, and a secondary harvest during the rainy season, from May to July, which bears less than the primary harvest. The pods are then cracked open to reveal tightly packed beans, around 40 beans to a pod. Again, this can vary. The beans are surrounded by a white mucilage, which is crucial to the next step. The mucilage is very high in sugar content and tastes somewhat like a lychee.
The next step, fermenting, involves leaving the beans out in the sun to ferment ad develop flavor. There are two commonly used methods. One involves leaving the beans out in a massive pile, around 2000 beans. They are placed on banana leaves and left in the sun for about a day. They are then mixed around, to ensure even coverage, and left to dry again. This repeats for as much time as the producer would like, as again, the optimal time varies. The other method is to put the beans in a crate and leave them to dry. They are shifted around between crates every so often. What is happening during this process is that the sugar in the mucilage which is still on the beans is being eaten by bacteria, mainly yeast, and producing heat. This in turn triggers chemical reactions in the beans and developing vital flavor molecules.
Next are three steps, all of which can be done in any preferable order, according to the preference of the maker. These three steps are cracking, winnowing, and roasting. Cracking is the process of separating the outer shell from the nib, which is the stuff that will be turned into chocolate. The outer shell, called the husk, is very light and thin, and flakes away easily, but makes a mess. Winnowing is the process of removing all trace of the husk, because the husk is just waste product. Since the husk is so light, simply applying a constant stream of air will cause it to float away. Roasting is basically toasting the bean to drive the chemical reactions started earlier in the fermenting stage to completion, which develops more flavor in the bean. Roasting temperatures and time can vary, depending on the beans and the maker's preference. After these three steps, the chocolate is finally in a usable form. Winnowing cannot go before cracking, because the husk is still on the bean, rather than separated.
After these three steps comes sorting, which is the process of picking through the nibs and taking out anything that may have been mixed up with such a large order of nibs, like pebbles. Misshapen or defective beans are also discarded here.
The next steps are refining and conching. Refining is grinding down the chocolate into a liquid, where the particles are no more than 20 microns in width, which gives the chocolate it's silky-smooth mouthfeel, and conching is heating the chocolate one final time to develop more flavor molecules and also get rid of unwanted flavors that come from the bean's original flavor profile. If you were to taste a raw cacao bean, just the nib, it would be very intense, but you could see how it would become chocolate. A common method of doing both at once is to use a melanger; this is a device that is a steel basin with two stone wheels that spin in opposite directions. This both breaks down the chocolate and produces heat via friction, which encourages conching.
This is also the step of the process where sugar and milk powder are added. Milk cannot be added in liquid form because chocolate hates liquids, unless the liquid in question is chocolate. This is because chocolate at the molecular level is held together by particles of cocoa butter, the fat present in chocolate. Cocoa butter on its own is very useful; it flavors white chocolate, is used as an emulsifier, can be incorporated into desserts to give a chocolatey, fatty "oleogustus" feel, etc. When you introduce a liquid, the cocoa butter has to spread over a larger area, which makes the chocolate fall apart. This is why milk can only be added in a solid form; it mixes with the chocolate and adds extra fat to the cocoa butter, helping it cover a larger area.
The next stage is tempering, which I think is the most crucial stage. You can just barely get by if you skip a step, maybe save refining, but tempering is absolutely indispensable. It's also the stage that requires a more scientific explaining of what's going on "behind the scenes", but tempering, heavily simplified, is heating the chocolate to a very specific degree, and then cooling it to a very specific degree. What is happening here is that the heating and cooling of the chocolate is causing the cocoa butter to crystallize, which gives chocolate it's hard snap and shiny look.
There are six different ways cocoa butter can crystallize, and only one of them most chocolatiers prefer. We will call them Forms 1 through 6. Form 1 is the least stable, and after a about a day or so it will revert into a form that is more stable, such as Form 3. This causes the sugar to crystallize as well, and go toward the surface, creating patterns on the surface in an event called "blooming". Most chocolatiers want to avoid this, so they try to create a chocolate in form 5, the highest accessible form through tempering. They would do this by heating and cooling, to rapidly recrystallize the chocolate until they get their desired result. Form 6, the last form, is unable to revert, but is impossible to achieve through tempering. After about a year, Form 5 will revert into Form 6, and then Form 6 will stay as Form 6. So, in a nutshell, tempering is the process of crystallizing the cocoa butter present into a stable form.
The next and final stage of this journey is barring, which is the process of putting the chocolate into molds, cooling it one final time, and wrapping it. If all goes well, and you've been treating this post like a recipe, you should now have a bar of finished chocolate.
This post is intended to educate readers on the process of making chocolate. The process I wrote about is not the only way. Many other successful methods have been used, and what you do with your chocolate is entirely up to you. Perhaps you want to use something other than a melanger to refine and conch. Maybe you want to age your chocolate to see what flavors come by. As always, it depends on your personal preference and what you feel like doing.
Massive thanks to Dandelion Chocolate for educating me on their process and guiding me on my personal journey through chocolate.

In the diagram, you can see the process laid out visually. The step labeled Beans contains both harvesting and fermenting, and the step labeled Melanging includes refining and conching. Refining and conching can be done without a melanger with other equipment, such as a ball refiner, but most chocolatiers I know of use melangers. Blocking was not mentioned, because to my knowledge, only Dandelion does this. I tried to make a list that was approximate for most chocolatiers, so I chose to not talk about this. I also said that roasting, cracking, and winnowing can be done in any preferable order, even though Dandelion has a set process. I know of several chocolatiers who do these steps in different orders.
This was one of the most fascinating things I've ever read! Thank you so much for sharing your expertise. ❤️