Cacao - Colombia’s brown gold

The natural scientist Alexander von Humboldt already described the cocoa fruit as something special: "The cocoa bean is a phenomenon; for no other time has nature squeezed such an abundance of nutrients from such a small space as it has." In ancient times, the fruit and the products that could be made from it, and above all the taste, were extremely appreciated.

The cocoa fruit and dried beans (organicfacts.net)

The worldwide harvest of cocoa beans comes from ten countries on the equator, led by Ivory Coast, followed by Indonesia, Ghana, Nigeria, Brazil, Cameroon, Ecuador, Dominican Republic, Malaysia and Colombia. Outside 20° north and south, the cocoa plant bears no fruit.

The evergreen cocoa tree usually flowers all year round and therefore bears fruit all year round, which makes it possible to harvest in a cocoa culture every 15 to 20 days.

The history of the chocolate as we know it today goes back to the times before Christ and had little in common with today's products in terms of appearance as well as taste.

History

The cocoa tree originates from Central and Northern South America and was already cultivated by the Aztecs and Incas. Cocoa is derived from the Indian word Cacahuacuahuitl. Columbus then brought the cocoa beans from his fourth trip from South America to Spain. Until the beginning of the 19th century it was not possible to separate cocoa butter and cocoa powder from each other and therefore the chocolate in this form as we know it today couldn’t exist. Despite the knowledge and trade of cocoa, today's chocolate bars have only existed since 1850.

Chocolate already had a high signification among the ancient cultures of Latin America (chocolatenest.es)

The history of cocoa cultivation dates back to 1,100 BC, which can be inferred from findings of ceramic vessels and the analysis of their backlogs. It is assumed that at that time it was not the cocoa bean that was used, but the sugary pulp of the fruit which was fermented into an alcoholic beverage. However, the beans obtained from the fruit were not only used as a sacrifice to please the gods, but also as a means of payment and to prepare a tangy spice potion that differed in taste from the cocoa drink that is widely used today. This bitter divine drink was a mixture of water, cocoa, corn, vanilla, cayenne pepper and some salt. In the 18th century, cocoa cultivation was extended to the Caribbean, the Dutch Antilles and further south in Latin America. In those days, slaves from Africa were brought for cultivation in tropical plantations.

Even today in Venezuela the word "cacao" can be used to call a person who is super rich. This saying goes back to the times when the cacao plantation owners earned a lot of money with this product.

The extraction of cocoa has changed over time and interestingly, this extremely sensitive and fragile plant carries only fruits in certain latitudes of the earth.

Preparation

The cocoa tree, botanically a shrub, needs high temperatures and rainfall, but also shade, which is why it is often cultivated in a mixed plantation with other shade-giving plants such as coconut palms, banana, rubber, avocado or mango trees.

The cocoa fruits usually contain 25-80 seeds surrounded by white creamy fruit pulp.

Only after a drying period the cocoa seeds turn brown. The flesh of the seeds tastes pleasantly sweet and sour so the locals and especially the children suck on the flesh and quench their thirst with it.

In the cocoa extraction process, the seeds are first separated from the flesh and the skin. This is followed by the processing of the cocoa beans respectively the fermentation of them in wooden sweatboxes, which develop a temperature of approximately 45 °C. The oxidation gives the cocoa beans their brown colour, the sprouts of the seeds lose their bitter taste and develop the typical cocoa aroma of our knowledge. After about 3-4 days in the fermentation boxes, the beans will left to dry and then roasted at a temperature of 90- 130 °C. The beans are then crushed and ground into powder.

Roasting cacao the traditional way (theartisansforest.com)

From the resulting mass, the chocolate can be made as we know it. With a hydraulic pressing procedure of this ground mass, the cocoa butter is obtained. Some of the butter is used for processing chocolate, others for medical and pharmaceutical purposes.

The colour and also the hardness of the chocolate depends primarily on the addition of cocoa powder: white chocolate contains a lot of cocoa butter and no cocoa powder. It is therefore soft and gets a white colour. Black chocolate, on the other hand, has a very low butter content and is therefore much harder and dark.

Cocoa is one of Colombia's most important export goods and plays an interesting role in the fight against the illegal drug traffic.

Cacao for Coca

At present in Colombia, about 100,000 people earn their money from cocoa cultivation, a number which the government tries to increase with various methods. This is to be achieved, among other things, through projects in which coca farmers are motivated to switch to the cultivation of a legal product such as cocoa.

The attempt to replace coca with legal crops is nothing new. There have been many such projects in the past, but most have failed. What is new this time is that the FARC, which controlled up to 70 per cent of all coca cultivation in Colombia, is actively involved in this change project. The FARC was a former rebel organisation and is today a political party. More about the transformation of the FARC on our Weaving Peace Tour.

The cacao should provide a legal alternative for the coca farmers (cgtn.com)

All families who currently live from the coca industry are to be supported by the government to switch to other alternatives from which the farmers can also live.

With this project, FARC and the government are testing what will later be extended to entire Colombia (or at least, this is the plan). This is an experiment with an unknown outcome, but it is a dilemma for the farmers because every ninth peasant lives directly or indirectly from the cultivation and sale of coca. It is often their only profitable source of income. Coffee and cocoa crops are legal, but take about a year to make a profit for the first time and, depending on the purchase price, are less lucrative than coca in many places. Not a good alternative in the opinion of many farmers. A total of 96,084 hectares of coca are still cultivated in Colombia, 2,402 hectares of them in the department of Antioquia. More than 2000 families in this region depend on coca as their sole source of income and only about ten percent of the farmers here are not financially dependent on coca cultivation.

Most of the farmers are ready for change, but on one condition: Equivalent alternatives and support from the state!

It is easy to say we do not want drug trafficking and we do not want poverty. The easiest and safest way to accomplish is to pay the farmers fair prices on which they can live then often poverty forces people to illegal actions. Worldwide, the same scheme works, if prices are kept (too) low for example by trading the goods on the commodities market (there the prices get fixed worldwide without variations in quality, production process or any else), then the exploitation of people and the environment happens.

Support this positive development with the purchasing fair produced chocolate.

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