Chocolate Bytes: For the Love of Chocolate

The Cocoa Tree

by Cathy on January 24th, 2007

For some reason, many people think cocoa beans are small beans that grow on a bush. While at a get-together with friends recently, I asked them to describe the cocoa plant (really, it was a fun get-together, I didn’t quiz them the whole time). They all described a plant similar to a coffee plant. Instead, cocoa beans grow inside a much larger pod that grows on trees.

Cocoa trees are grown in tropical environments, mainly near the equator in countries like the Ivory Coast, Ghana, Indonesia, and Brazil. The trees themselves are very delicate and can be difficult to grow. They need lots of heat, humidity, and shelter from taller trees. When it comes time to harvest a cocoa crop, workers cannot climb into the trees as they are too fragile. Instead they pick the pods with long-handled knives.

Cocoa trees start to produce fruit (see, I knew chocolate was extremely good for you) or pods after five years. Production reaches its peak between ten and thirteen years, but the trees can continue to produce pods for decades after that. The cocoa pods are a green or purplish colour and are shaped like a long melon about 8 to 10 inches long. Each pod contains somewhere around 40 cocoa beans inside its thick rind.

So now you know where that chocolate you are eating comes from.

Image

Share This

Related Stories

G&J Hot Cocoa Recall
Cocoa Banana Muffins
Hot Cocoa Mix
Chocolate Rice Krispies Treats
Chocolate Habit Could Get More Expensive

POSTED IN: Chocolate Trivia