Cocoa powder is made by fermenting and drying cacao beans, roasting them, removing the shells, grinding the nibs into liquor, pressing out most of the cocoa butter and milling the remaining cake into powder. Natural cocoa stops there; Dutch-process cocoa has an extra alkalizing step.
Every spoonful of cocoa in your mug has travelled a long way: a pod cut from a trunk by hand, a week in a wooden box turning sweet pulp into flavor, days drying in the sun, a roast, a press that squeezes out the butter, and a mill. Knowing those steps does more than satisfy curiosity. It explains why two tins that look identical can taste nothing alike, why a cheap cocoa tastes dusty, and why the farm matters more than the factory. Here is the journey, step by step, with the one fact that makes each step matter. To follow the same beans all the way to a bar, see how chocolate is made.
How is cocoa powder made, step by step?
1. Harvest. Cacao pods grow straight out of the trunk and thick branches, and ripe ones are cut by hand with a knife or a blade on a pole. Careless cutting damages the cushion the next flowers grow from, so a good harvester is as careful as a pruner. The pod is split and the beans come out, each wrapped in sweet white pulp. More on the pod itself, from flower to harvest, is in our guide to the cacao pod.
2. Ferment. The beans and pulp go into wooden boxes or heaps for about five to six days, turned every day or two; delicate Criollo beans need only two or three. Yeasts and bacteria eat the pulp, the mass heats itself, and inside each bean the chemistry that will later become chocolate flavor begins. This is the step that decides most of what you taste.
3. Dry. The fermented beans are spread in the sun on mats, raised beds or under solar tents until their moisture falls from about 55% to about 7.5%. Dry beans store and ship safely; beans dried too fast or too slow pick up off flavors that no roaster can remove.
4. Roast. At the factory the beans, or the nibs inside them, are roasted. Roasting develops the flavor the farm started, darkens the bean and loosens the papery shell.
5. Winnow. The roasted beans are cracked, and a stream of air carries the light shell fragments away, leaving clean cocoa nibs.
6. Grind. The nibs are ground between heavy rollers or stones into a fluid, dark paste called cocoa liquor. There is no alcohol in it; it is simply cocoa solids suspended in their own melted fat, which the grinding has released.
7. Press. The liquor is pressed under enormous pressure, and the cocoa butter runs out as a golden liquid, leaving a hard, dry cake of cocoa solids. The butter goes on to chocolate bars and cosmetics; the cake becomes your cocoa powder.
8. Mill. The cake is broken and milled into a fine, even powder. Natural cocoa is finished here, still carrying the acidity and fruit of the bean.
9. Alkalize, optionally. Some producers treat the cocoa with an alkaline solution, the Dutch process, which darkens the color and mellows the acidity. It is the main reason cocoas differ so much from one tin to the next.
What is the difference between natural and Dutch-process cocoa powder?
Natural cocoa skips step 9, so it keeps its natural acidity, a pH of about 5.3 to 5.8, and the bright, fruity notes the bean was fermented to produce. Dutch-process, or alkalized, cocoa goes through the optional alkalizing step, which darkens it, softens its flavor and brings its pH close to neutral. Neither is better; they suit different recipes, and the choice is explained in our guide to Dutch-process cocoa powder. The cocoa Grevista distributes is non-alkalized.
Why does fermentation matter so much?
Because it happens before anything else touches the bean, and because it cannot be undone. The precursors of chocolate flavor form during those five or six days in the box; a bean that is poorly fermented tastes harsh and astringent, and no amount of roasting or milling can fix it later. Our guide to cocoa bean fermentation walks through each stage. This is why fine-flavor origins such as Vietnam, which the ICCO rates at 80% fine or flavor, put so much attention on how growers ferment and dry, and why a producer who controls those steps can promise the same cup next season. The Vietnamese side of the story is in what to know about Vietnamese cocoa.
Why does heavy-metal testing happen on the finished powder?
Because processing does not remove cadmium, only a test on the finished powder shows what you eat; see heavy metals in cocoa powder.
How was the cocoa Grevista distributes made?
It is made by VNCACAO CO., LTD under its Tbros label from Vietnamese Trinitario beans grown in Dak Lak, and it is non-alkalized and unsweetened. The producer ferments its beans the traditional way, in wooden boxes lined with banana leaves, to preserve the aroma, and dries them in the sun. One ingredient, no step 9. Where the farms are is covered in where cocoa is grown in Vietnam, and the 7 oz (200 g) box is the one to try first.
To put this into practice when you shop, see our guide to the best cacao powder, which compares options by processing, flavor and published heavy-metal testing.
Frequently asked questions
How is cocoa powder made?
Cacao beans are fermented and dried, roasted and shelled, ground into liquor, pressed to remove most of the cocoa butter, and the remaining cake is milled into powder.
How long are cacao beans fermented?
About five to six days on most farms, and two to three days for delicate Criollo beans, according to the International Cocoa Organization.
What is the difference between cocoa liquor, cocoa butter and cocoa powder?
Liquor is the ground nib paste; pressing it separates cocoa butter, the fat, from the solid cake, and the cake is milled into cocoa powder.
Is all cocoa powder alkalized?
No. Natural cocoa is not alkalized; Dutch-process cocoa is treated with an alkaline solution in an optional extra step.
What are the ingredients in cocoa powder?
Plain unsweetened cocoa powder has one ingredient: cocoa, made from roasted, ground cacao beans with part of the cocoa butter pressed out. Dutch-process cocoa adds an alkalizing agent, listed on the label as “processed with alkali.” Sugar, milk powder or flavorings mean you are holding a hot cocoa mix or a sweetened cocoa.
Keep reading
The powder that skips the alkali step is explained in natural cocoa powder. The regions behind the beans are in where cocoa grows in Vietnam, and the starting bean in cocoa varieties around the world. When the tin is open, how to use cocoa powder is the next page.
Commercial relationship: Grevista distributes this cocoa and earns revenue from sales on Amazon. See our Affiliate & Commercial Disclosure.
Sources
- International Cocoa Organization. Processing Cocoa, checked October 6, 2026.
- International Cocoa Organization. Revision of Annex “C” of the International Cocoa Agreement, 2010, April 26, 2024, checked October 6, 2026.
- U.S. Department of Agriculture. FoodData Central: Cocoa, dry powder, unsweetened (FDC ID 169593), checked September 15, 2026.
Written by the Grevista Editorial Team. Last updated November 1, 2026. How we check facts: Editorial Policy.