Chocolate is made from the fermented, roasted and ground beans taken from the pod of the tropical cacao tree Theobroma cacao native to Central America. The resulting products are known as "chocolate" or in some parts of the world as cocoa. They have an intensely flavored bitter taste. The bean products are known under different names in different parts of the world.

In the American chocolate industry Cocoa is defined as the solids of the cacao bean, Cocoa butter is defined as the fat component, and Chocolate is a combination of the solids and the fat. It is the solid and the fat combination, sweetened with sugar and other ingredients which is made into chocolate bars, and which is commonly referred to as chocolate by the public.