Charlie and the Chocolate Factory is one of my favourite childhood books. The concept that you could create magnificent sweets and live in a world of chocolate is one that I can definitely get on board with. The taste and smell of chocolate is one that most people can recall if they think about it and is one of the many smells that work strongly in Scent Marketing that is provided by companies like https://moodmedia.co.uk/project/scent-marketing-for-businesses. The smell of chocolate is one that would definitely get my wandering into a store and it actually increases the theta waves in the brain which in turn triggers relaxation. Not that I need an excuse to eat chocolate, but I will definitely be telling people it helps me relax!
Here are some interesting facts about the world of chocolate or Theobroma cacao as it is scientifically known and majestically nicknamed “food of the gods”.
Chocolate is much more complex than people first realise and a plain bar contains over 600 different flavour compounds along with containing 10 milligrams of caffeine – this increases with darker chocolate. It is one of the only edible items that melts at 32 degrees Celsius. This is just below our body temperatures which is why a cube of chocolate will melt slowly in your mouth.
The Mayan’s are reported to be the first people to have grown cacao trees and to drink a chocolate style drink, although this was a spicy version of what we have today. The cocoa bean was used by this civilisation as a form of currency and at one point was thought to be more valuable than gold. Over the years the cocoa products have been refined and adapted to give us the vast array that we find on our shelves today. It was Cadbury’s here in the UK that made the first-ever solid bar of chocolate back in 1842.
There are four standard types of chocolate which include milk, dark, white and blond. White chocolate isn’t technically chocolate as it doesn’t contain any cocoa in a solid or liquor form. It instead contains cocoa butter. It takes around 400 individual cacao beans to make just one pound of chocolate.
It has been reported that chocolate may carry some health benefits, the obvious caveat here is that the sugar content of chocolate is not healthy and the health benefits apply only to dark chocolate which is eaten in very small quantities. It is thought that dark chocolate can help to reduce the risk of heart disease, improve circulation, help to lower blood pressure and improve the overall function of the brain as well as being a good source of antioxidants.
