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Chalk one up for Chocolate!

Cocoa producing areas lie near the equator. Bounded to the north and south by the Tropics of Cancer and Capricorn, this region of tropical rain-forests, with its moist, windless climate and constant warmth, provides ideal conditions for the growth and well-being of the cocoa tree. The cocoa tree may have originated in the Amazon basin of Brazil, or in the Orinoco Valley of Venezuela, or perhaps in Central America. Some regard Mexico and Equador as the original home of cocoa.

The oldest plantations are in the northern areas of South America. At a later date, the cultivation of cocoa spread southward to Brazil. At the end of the nineteenth century, cultivation spread to the equatorial regions of West Africa. Today, the Ivory Coast and Brazil are the most productive areas in the world.

There are several species of cocoa trees. They are very delicate and sensitive plants, and need protection from wind and sun. Although you will only find the trees in tropical climates, they require a fair amount of shade especially in their first four years. Cocoa seedlings are planted in fiber baskets or plastic bags in nurseries. In a few months they are ready for transplanting, container and all. Newly planted seedlings are always shaded by other trees. "Cocoa mothers" is the term to the many varieties of shade providing trees… banana, plantain, coconut palms, rubber trees, leguminous plants, lemon and baobab trees, to name a few. The first blossoms begin to appear after about two years…delicate pink sepals and yellowish-white blossom petals.

Moss and colorful lichens are often found clinging to the bark… in some areas breathtaking baby orchids grow on the branches. Thousands of tiny waxy pink or white five-pedaled blossoms cluster together on the trunk and older branches. Less than 10% mature into full fruit. The trees blossom almost continuously; a fully grown specimen can sometimes produce as many as 50,000 or even 100,000 blossoms in one year.

The fruit pods, somewhat football-shaped, are green, or sometimes maroon colored, and grow on the trunk of the tree as well as its main branches. They ripen into a golden color or take on a scarlet hue with multicolored flecks. Inside the pod, enveloped in the white fruit pulp and arranged in five rows are between 20 and 40 precious, almond-shaped cocoa beans.

Cocoa trees are fragile and harvesting is difficult. So soft is the bark of this tree, and so shallow are its roots, that tumbadores [pickers] cannot climb the tree to reach the pods on the higher branches. They use long handled steel knives to snip the highest pods without wounding the tree. Machetes are used for the pods growing within reach on the lower trunk.

Just as the ripening of wine grapes is signaled by their change in color, cocoa pods turn bright red, orange or yellow at the peak of ripeness. Usually there is a main harvest season that lasts several months, and a mid-crop harvest lasting several more months. Climatic differences cause wide variations in harvest times with frequent fluctuations from year to year even within the same location.

Cocoa trees bare fruit three or four times a year. They are in leaf continuously. Blossom, unripe fruit [pods] and also mature ripe fruit can be seen on the branches simultaneously, since the growing season in the tropics is continuous, due to the evenly distributed rainfall.

A good breaker can open 500 pods an hour! Pods are collected in baskets and taken to the edge of a field where the pod breaking operation begins. One or two lengthwise blows from a well-wielded machete are usually enough to split open the woody shells. Anywhere from 20 to 50 cream-colored wet sticky seeds, called beans are scooped from each pod… approximately 400 beans are required to make one pound of chocolate. Exposure to air quickly changes the cream-olored beans to a lavender or purple. They don’t have the well-known fragrance of chocolate at this time.

The beans are packed in 130 to 200 pound jute sacks, weighed and classified, and the tropical fruit is stowed in the holds of freighters, crossing oceans to the great ports of Europe and North America. Upon arrival, the beans are cleaned, selected, blended, roasted and ground, determining much of the chocolate's final character in the process.