VOA常速英语2019--巧克力的制作流程

I’m Bill Mclaughlin, and I’m the creator of plants here the United States’ Botanic Garden. What we are looking at today is our chocolate tree or cacao tree. The scientific name for this is Theobroma Cacao, and Theobroma is Greek, Theo- is for God and Broma- for fruit, so it’s literally 1 Fruit of the Gods, and definitely because of its association with the sweet chocolate we all love, that is a pretty easy association. In nature, the flowers are pollinated by tiny fly like creatures called midges. Once plant pollinated, they produce little pod, and the pod grows in a period of 6 to 9 months, and changes from green to yellow. And we happen to have a pod that was just harvested off our tree, and I’ve cut it open here so we can see what’s inside. What we have is while pulp 2, and that is surrounding the seeds which we call chocolate beans. These are what are processed and eventually become chocolate, but it is quite a process.

我是比尔·麦克劳克林，我一手栽培了美国香草植物园的所有植物。我们此时此刻看到的是我们的巧克力树，也叫可可树。它的学名是Theobroma Cacao（可可）。Theobroma是希腊语，其中Theo是神的意思，Broma是果实的意思。所以，它的字面意思是“神的果实”，这名字当然与大家都爱吃的甜巧克力有关，这名字很容易就让人产生联想。在大自然中，花朵都是由微小生物授粉的，比如一种叫蠓的生物。植物得到授粉后，会长出豆荚。然后豆荚再用6-9个月的时间，就能由绿变黄。我们这里现在恰好有一个豆荚是刚从树上收割下来的。我已经将这个豆荚切开了，我们来看看里面的样子：里面有白色的果肉，果肉包裹着种子，也就是我们所说的巧克力豆。巧克力豆是我们要加工处理的产物，最后巧克力都会加工成巧克力，但这个过程还是很漫长的。

Once these seed are fermented 4, and often time done by just simply piling them up in a basket or a vessel 5, and covering them up with something like banana leaves, they’re left to ferment 3 for about ten days to two weeks. That fermentation process drives the flavor into the bean. Once they are fermented, they’re dried and ready for processing.

豆子要经过发酵，而发酵的方法一般很简单——将豆子堆积在篮筐里或者容器里，并用香蕉叶之类的东西盖住。然后就保持住，给它大概10天-2周的时间去发酵。这个发酵的过程可以让豆子入味儿。发酵后，豆子要晾干，准备进行加工。

So these beans are then ground down, made into smaller pieces called nibs 6, and these are processed by pressing. With all the pressure, it goes into pressing them down, usually concerning a roughened stone or something. You got a separation. The product is just called chocolate liquor, but actually it’s fairly solid that’s separated out into both cocoa butter and the actually powder cocoa. These are recombined with milk, sugar and other ingredients to make chocolate. It was the Europeans that came as the colonial powers into Middle America that thought to add sugar and milk, so that’s become the chocolate we know and love today.

然后，这些豆子要碾碎，变成细小的颗粒，我们称之为可可粒。这个过程是通过碾压来实现的。在巨大的压力下可以实现碾压，通常可以用粗糙的岩石等物体。这样就得到了分离物，也称为巧克力浆，但实际上巧克力浆基本上类似于固体，可以分离成可可脂和可可粉。这些分离物再跟牛奶、糖等原料重新混合，制成巧克力。欧洲以中美洲为殖民地的时候，试着将糖和牛奶加入这种分离物里，才有了我们今天熟知又喜爱的巧克力。