The broken pieces of the fermented, dried, and usually roasted, cocoa bean, after the shell--actually the thin seed coat of the cocoa bean--has been removed via a process called winnowing. Cocoa nibs may be eaten out of hand, or ground into chocolate liquor, which itself may be used for chocolate making or pressing to extract the fat of the cocoa b... Found on http://www.encyclo.co.uk/local/22181