About Chocolate and Cacao Production

 

Have you ever wondered where chocolate comes from or how it's grown? Believe it or not, it actually does grow on trees. A small tropical tree called, Theobroma cacao, know as, "cacao." (ka-KOW) Theobroma is Greek and means, "food of the gods." The Cacao tree is native to central and South America, but is grown commercially throughout the tropic region. Africa is the largest producer of the world's cacao at 70%.

 

A single cacao tree can produce almost two thousand pods a year. The seeds are stuck in a milky white pulp which is contained in an elongated pod. The fruit grows from the branches and it will even grow right out of the trunk. The pulp is sweet and tart and is used as food as well as in drinks. Don't go biting into one of those seeds expecting to find a sweet taste. They are incredibly bitter straight out of the pod.

 

Interestingly, the fruit attracts forest animals who eat the fruit but don't like the bitter seeds which they toss to the forest floor allowing new trees to sprout up.

So how do they get chocolate from these seeds and transform them into an etible form? First the pods need to be harvested, which takes place usually twice a year. Workers use machetes and long poles to cut the pods from the trees. They open the pods by hand being extra careful not to damage the seeds inside.

 

They then take the seeds or beans and start the fermentation process. The sticky beans still covered in the pulp are laid in pits or wooden bins and covered with bannana leaves. The heat of fermentation changes the bitterness in the beans into something more edible and they start to taste more like chocolate. Inside the bean, the sugars have turned into acid and the color changes from pale to dark brown. Diferent types of beans take different amounts of time for fermentation process to be complete. Sometimes it takes a few days while others may need a week or more.

Once the fermentation is complete, the beans are dried in the Sun for about a week. As they sit, the flavor continues to develop. Once they are dry, they are ready to be transported to a factory where they are turned into chocolate.

There are many politcal and socio-economic issues currently around the production and growth of cacao. Movements such as Fair-Trade are attempting to help make sure that the farmer gets a fair price for his crops. There has been much corruption in the chocolate growing industry and many small local farmers are not being treated fairly. Most cacao is grown by very small farms and they have suffered many injustices in the way of not being paid fairly for their crops. Read more about Fair Trade issues and other orginazations dealing with this issue.