How white chocolate is or isn't "chocolate."

A surprisingly large number of people don't know what white chocolate actually is. I'll head off any ridiculous thought or question one might have by stating that there is no such thing as a "white cocoa bean." Interestingly enough the United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA) doesn't even classify white chocolate as a type of chocolate. How might that be? To understand why one might not consider white chocolate to be a chocolate one must first understand the process in which both chocolate and white chocolate are made and the ingredients that go into them both.

Theobroma Cacao Tree

It all begins with the Theobroma Cacao Tree fount in equatorial regions throughout Asia, Africa and south America. The seeds, or Cocoa bean, is harvested and allowed to ferment for about a week before it is dried. The richer more flavorful chocolates come from Cocoa beans that are slowly dried naturally in the sun, whereas an artificial or quick dry method of drying the beans typically yields an inferior quality chocolate. After the beans have fermented and dried they are roasted, the shells are then removed and the remaining meat of the seed is ground  which produces a viscous liquid called the Chocolate Liquor.

The chocolate liquor can be used to make unsweetened chocolate or pressed to extract the lipids or fats which make up what is commonly known as cocoa butter. With the lipids removed the liquor  becomes a cocoa powder. The powder is then mixed with other ingredients, typically including small amounts of cocoa butter or chocolate liquor to create different variations of chocolates. Plain chocolate's key ingredients being cocoa powder, chocolate liquor, cocoa butter and sugar. Whereas milk chocolate's main ingredients are same however notably includes milk as well.

White chocolate however consists of the cocoa butter, milk and sugar. As a result white chocolate does not contain any cocoa solids, which is why the FDA does not classify white chocolate as a chocolate. This means that white "chocolates" can be made with vanilla bean lipids and even vegetable oils instead of the cocoa butter. This is why a large number of people do not consider white chocolate to be a "chocolate."