How It's Made: Chocolate Mints
Vocab level: C1
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Chocolates and mints are enjoyed by many people.
Then someone discovered putting the two together makes for a delicious experience.
The cool zestiness of the mint offsets the rich creaminess of the chocolate.
It is one of the sweetest matches in candy history.
Chocolate or mint? With a chocolate mint, the decision is easy,
because the two flavors are wrapped into one.
To make chocolate mints, they pump liquid sugar into a heated mixer and add granular sugar.
The mixer blends it into simmering syrup exiting through strainers.
Then it's moved into a vacuum-sealed cooker.
It sucks out moisture, and the syrup thickens to a jelly-like consistency.
A worker transfers it to a second mixer and adds the mint flavoring.
Thorough mixing thickens it and lightens the color substantially.
He transfers the mint-flavored candy to a work table.
Powerful mechanical arms massage the slab to cool and harden the candy.
Next, a hopper funnels the candy into pressurized rollers that squeeze it into a long sheet.
The sheet rides an inclining conveyor.
Once it reaches the top, an employee wraps the end around a long steel tube.
The tube revolves and twists the mint candy around it.
The long candy sheet takes the shape of the tube.
They melt and mix chunks of pure chocolate with cocoa, powdered milk, and icing sugar.
They add coconut oil and lecithin to bind the ingredients.
Once mixed, the employee transfers it to a hopper next to the big mint candy tube.
From here, the chocolate is injected into the hollow of the mint candy tube.
The tube rolls off the forming cylinder and passes by rollers that squeeze the diameter down to a rope size.
A compactor then mashes the candy rope to give the filling a honeycomb texture.
Pullers now stretch a second slab of mint candy until it thickens and turns a lighter color.
The worker cuts it into chunks that fit into the next rolling machine.
It presses the candy into a sheet, which then lands on top of the mint chocolate.
The two layers now enter the next forming machine.
This one wraps the outer layer around the chocolate-infused one,
creating a chocolate-filled mint tube.
Rollers reduce the diameter to half an inch in size.
Next, the chocolate mint rope enters a die cutter.
It shapes and cuts the rope into mints.
The mints spill into a spreader, which distributes them evenly across a perforated conveyor.
Fans blow air through the holes in the conveyor to cool and solidify the candies.
Once the candies have hardened, they head to the wrapping station.
Here they ride a rotating circular platform and fall into candy-sized slots.
Glossy metallized film wrap unwinds.
Mechanical arms collect the chocolate mints as they fall out of the slots.
They hold the candies for wrapping while devices twist the ends.
It takes only a fraction of a second to wrap a candy.
Then it's on to a weigh station.
Scales release the individually wrapped chocolate mints in increments.
They fall into bags, ready for retail.
Approximately 2,400 chocolate mints are made every minute at this factory.
Two flavors in one candy, they're quite a treat.
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