» Cacao Trees Bearer of raw cacao beans - A gourmet chocolate blog about healthy chocolate containing the best chocolate information about fine chocolate…

For your edification I go over the process of Cacao Tree growth, and maturity. And those of you that are not interested, skip the section, and move on to the next about cacao beans, and consumption.

The cacao tree starts bearing fruits, when it is around four or five years old. The flowers of a cacao tree are so small that unless you are looking for it you are liable to miss it. The bud takes at least six month to mature into a fruit. A fully grown fruit is about six to ten inches long and three to four inches in diameter. From the fruits, we harvest the cocoa beans / seeds. Removing a portion of the thick husk shows that the seeds are covered with a pulp. The oval-shaped cocoa beans are about one and a quarter inches long and vary in color from white to purple. Dried and fermented cocoa beans can weigh from one-twentieth to one-thirtieth of an ounce.

Many people like to eat raw cocoa bean. It can be eaten before or after fermentation depending on your preference. The problem with fermented bean is that they lose some of the nutritional substance during the fermented process. On the other hand the raw cocoa beans have a bitter taste.