Subject: The Chocolate Tree

Cacao trees or Theobroma cacao are called “the food of the gods.” While you cant pick chocolate from a tree and eat it, like you do oranges and apples, the idea is appealing!

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The cacao tree is a tropical evergreen that grows in many places, but always within 20 degrees of the equator. Most of the plantations are in South and Central America, Africa and some parts of Asia. This is not the same tree that produces cocaine, which is the cocae or coca bush, not a tree at all, nor is it a coco palm which produces coconuts.

On most plantations, the trees get their start in nurseries or from cuttings of a mother tree which are high yielding. For the first few months they are nursed and taken great care of, then they are transplanted to the plantation in the shade of other trees, rubber or banana trees are common. Using other crop producing trees allows a second means of income for the plantation owners as cacao is only harvested twice a year. They start bearing fruit when they are between three and five years of age, cacao trees produce fruit all year long, it is not uncommon to see one tree with pods at several stages of development. The pods grow from the main trunk or the thinker older branches only, they flower first and each flower turns into a pod.

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The pods are harvested very carefully so as not to damage the cushion which is what the flowers and pods grow from. The cacao tree has no means of naturally distributing its seeds, in nature the pods are eaten by squirrels, rats and monkeys who do not eat the bitter seeds, but only the sweet pulp. On plantations the pods are harvested and opened by people using machetes, and the seeds and pulp are separated by hand.

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Thank you,

Bill Anderson
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