All About Cacao

Finished cacao blocks as sold in the village of Quebrada Cacao

While my primary Peace Corps mission here in Panama is working with local community water systems, all these villages rely on cacao production for some of their income. I share some of what I've learned about cacao with you here:

CACAO PRODUCTION
The base for all your favorite chocolate treats is cacao – the fruit of the cacao tree, native to 

Ripe cacao pods in the jungle

Central America, but now mostly grown in Africa on commercial mono-culture plantations. In Panama, cacao trees grow on family farms called fincas. The trees are scattered in the jungle among all the other jungle plants. The fruit is produced year-round, with two main production times tied to the rainy seasons. The family will walk the finca and harvest the fruit (or pods) as it matures. The pods are then sliced or broken open to reveal the seeds, which are the actual source of commercial cacao.

The seeds are covered in a fruity mass that tastes a bit like pineapple. The wet seeds are placed in a bucket or other container and fermented for 4 or 5 days, producing a pungent alcohol smell and melting away all the fruit from the seeds. Then the seeds are dried. Here in rural Panama, they are sun dried for 4 to 6 days (depending on weather) and rotated daily. African plantations use heated vats

Wet beans in fermentation bucket to remove fruit flesh

 for a fast fermentation and large, gas powered driers to dry the seeds.

The dried pods are then mostly sold to a local cooperative or company purchasing agent in 50 kilogram bags. The agents travel directly to the rural villages and pay in cash. The coop pays about 50% more, but the family must bring the seeds to a nearby larger city and gets paid by check, which must then be cashed.

A drying rack for the clean beans

Some local villages have started producing value-added products with their cacao seeds. Peace Corps volunteers from the Small Business Development program have helped promote this effort. The seeds are roasted for about 20-30 minutes, which dries the seed shell (cascara), which is then broken open to reveal the cacao bean. The beans are then passed through a fine grinder to 

Hand grinding shelled beans into paste

make cacao paste.
These villages offer several products for sale, in addition to tourist tours of the cacao process. They sell roasted, shelled beans (called nibs), dried cacao paste and finished chocolate bars. The dried paste is sold in blocks, which is similar to Bakers Chocolate, but 100% pure vs 40% purity of the commercial product. The chocolate bars are generally made by grinding cinnamon and sugar with the beans to produce a rich dark chocolate bar.

Beans (mostly broken bits called "nibs")

It is estimated that for every dollar that a consumer spends on a high quality chocolate product, the grower will get only about 0.3 cents – far less for a Nestle or Hershey low cacao content bar. For each 50 kg bag, the grower will get about $80 from an agent or $115 from the

Locals lined up at the cacao coop to sell their beans

coop. To earn that $115, they must harvest and open about 400 to 500 pods, remove the seeds, ferment them, dry them and transport them (by hand). If this seems like a lot of work for very little reward - IT IS !! That same bag will produce about $900 worth of pure dark chocolate bar if sold to tourists – well worth the extra effort.l

The locals use some of the beans at home to make a thin hot chocolate drink, sweetened by sugar or fine corm meal. Some folks drink the fermented fruit, which looks and smells pretty nasty. I met one woman who uses the outer shell of the pod to make a fruit jam that tastes a bit like pineapple.
Random notes: Pound for pound, cacao beans have about 7 times the caffeine of coffee beans. It takes about 5 years for a tree to start producing fruit. Each tree will yield between 30 and 50 fruits per year – dependent on weather and how well the tree is maintained and overhead jungle is cleared. There are about 40-50 seeds per pod.

 A bit more about cacao "nibs" - raw or roasted beans you can buy at the store or online. They are generally sold as "nibs" - bits of the cacao seed or bean. Like many tree nuts, they are hard to remove from the shell intact, though you might get a few in a packet of nibs. They can be eaten as is or used in hot chocolate drink or bars.

My friend Simone taught me the trick of eating them right, out of the shell. Don't try and chew or you'll get a blast of very bitter chocolate. Chocolate conveniently melts at about 90F, so just let the nibs sit in your mouth, while sliding and smearing the melted ambrosia around your mouth. The cacoa butter will coat the surfaces and enzymes will convert starches to sugar. Hold in the mouth and resist the urge to swallow as long as possible. I guarantee a whole new dark chocolate experience.
When cooking the beans/nibs, use very low heat - no more than 110F. You can add dried fruit, sugar, honey, condensed milk, nuts - whatever your imagination dictates.
The nibs are available online (Amazon has a large assortment). I suggest buying from Central / South American sources rather than the big corporate mono-culture plantations in Africa.