From Tree to Factory

Growing Cacao 

A neatly packaged chocolate bar is the end result of a long and delicate process that typically starts on a small family farm in a tropical country.

Looking at a cacao tree it’s hard to imagine that the world’s favorite treat starts out here. It’s a really funny-looking tree. It has colorful, rugby ball-shaped pods which sprout from the trunk and hang on the branches. The pods are so big it looks as if they defy gravity, jutting straight out of the trunk and suspended from the tree’s thin branches.

But inside these pods is where chocolate magic begins. Each pod houses about 40 cacao beans, also called cocoa beans. The beans are covered in sticky, white, sweet tasting pulp which looks odd but actually is critical to the ultimate development of the bean’s flavor.

Cacao's Challenge

Despite chocolate’s centuries-old popularity, cacao is not an easy plant to grow.

• It only thrives in climates 20 degrees north and south of the equator;
• It must be planted next to taller trees whose leaves will protect it from direct sun and high wind;
• It is susceptible to pests and disease which routinely destroy one-third of the world’s yearly crop.

In addition, the trees are not very productive. Consider:

• A tree must be five or six years old before it will bear fruit.
• Each tree bears about 30 usable pods a year, which translates to roughly 1000 beans a year.
• It takes 500 beans to make 1 pound of bittersweet chocolate – so in the best of circumstances, each tree produces beans for only 2 pounds of chocolate.

The Cacao Harvest

Nearly all the world’s cacao trees are grown on small, family farms. Almost 90% of cacao bean production comes from farms under 12 acres.

Of the 3.5 million small family cacao farms worldwide, it is estimated that 2.6 million are located in Africa.

Cacao farming is very labor intensive. Every part of cacao farming, from planting to harvesting to fermenting, is best done by hand, not machines. Pods must be removed from the trees individually, by hand, because not all ripen at the same time. Farmers generally use machetes or large knives attached to poles to slice down the ripe pods, taking care not to hurt nearby buds.

The pods are split open by hand. The beans are scooped out and the outer shell is discarded. If you tasted a bean at this point you would notice a sweet, lemony flavor from the pulp. The actual bean would be bitter and hard to eat.

Fermentation

Once the cacao beans are scooped from the pods, they are fermented and dried in the two-step curing process that sets in motion the development of the flavor nuances which make tasting chocolate so exciting.

Fermentation is the first critical process to develop the beans’ flavor. The beans, still covered with pulp, are placed in large, shallow wooden boxes or are left in piles and covered with banana leaves.

Once fermentation begins, the sugar in the pulp is converted into acids that change the chemical composition of the beans. Fermentation generates temperatures as high as 125° F, activating enzymes that create the flavor precursors which are the beginning of chocolate as we know it.  

The fermentation process takes anywhere from two to eight days. (Unfermented or lightly fermented beans have less chocolate flavor but are higher in health-promoting antioxidants.)

Drying

The next key process is drying. The best way to dry cacao beans is to lay them on bamboo mats and let them bask in the sun's warming rays. In some humid, rainy climates, beans are dried inside or by blowers circulating hot air which can pose problems. If the beans dry too quickly some of the chemical reactions started in the fermentation process are not allowed to finish and the beans taste acidic or bitter.  If the drying is too slow, mold and off- flavors can develop.

The drying process takes several days during which the beans lose nearly all their moisture and more than half their weight. Once the beans are dried, they are ready to be shipped to chocolate factories around the world.

To Market

Farmers take the fermented and dried cacao beans to collection sites where they are mixed with beans from surrounding farms. The beans are loaded into 200 pound sacks and transported to shipping centers.

Buyers sample the quality of the crop by cutting open a number of beans to see if they were properly fermented. The beans should have a brown center and be aromatic.