Lets Learn about Chocolate!

Cocoa was first planted in Ghana in 1879. Ghana is renowned for the quality of its cocoa beans. Cocoa accounts for 28% of Ghana's foreign exchange earnings and 57% of total agricultural exports. Annual production has grown from around 400,000 tonnes during the period 1995-2003 to a record 737,000 tonnes in 2004. The growth was prompted by the government's cocoa expansion drive to increase export earnings, which included higher farmer prices and subsidised crop spraying.

Smallholder farmers produce almost all cocoa grown in the country. 3.2 million farmers and workers are engaged in cocoa production in Ghana (population 22.2 million), out of a total of 14 million worldwide Cocoa trees grow in hot, damp climates in countries on or near the equator, such as Ghana in Africa and Brazil in South America.

When a cocoa tree is young, it needs the friendly shade of other trees such as coconut and banana trees to protect it from the fierce African sun. A cocoa tree produces thousands of tiny white flowers and about 20 or 30 of these develop into cocoa pods. The cocoa pods are split open with huge knives called machetes. Farmers have to concentrate very hard, otherwise they may cut their fingers off! Inside the cocoa pods are 30-40 cocoa beans and some white sticky gooey pulpy stuff that tastes tangy and fruity, a bit like lychees.

There are 3040 cocoa beans in a pod. The cocoa beans and gooey pulp are removed from the cocoa pod carefully by hand. They are wrapped in banana leaves and left to ferment in the shade. Inside the leaf parcels it becomes really hot. The heat makes the pulp ferment, which means that bacteria and yeasts in the pulp multiply. This releases chemicals that give the cocoa beans their chocolatey flavour and colour.

After a week of fermenting in banana leaves, the beans are spread out onto long bamboo tables and dried in the sun for up to 10 days. As the beans dry they shrink in size as they lose a lot of the water inside them.