Cocoa Butter
The naturally occurring fat making up roughly half of the cocoa bean. It is solid at room temperature. When cooling, it can form six different types of crystal structure; the most stable of these is responsible for giving chocolate its “temper”. Cocoa butter is pressed from cacao mass after the beans have been ground. It is later added back into the chocolate liquor for conching. Some artisanal producers neither press the cocoa butter from the beans (the equipment required is large and expensive) nor add in extra cocoa butter for practical concerns. Chocolate made in this way is arguably a more faithful representation of the beans used.