Making Chocolate

Earlier this year I went to go to a workshop at the Río Muchacho Organic Farm on the coast of Ecuador. Most of the workshop was review for me, but we did get to MAKE CHOCOLATE! Here's a little info about how to make chocolate - old school style.

1. Get the pods off of the tree.You can chop 'em off with a machete or whack them down with a stick.

This is a cacao tree (from Indonesia - can you believe we haven't taken one in Ecuador yet?). These are unripe pods.

2. Fermenting and drying. When you chop the cacao fruit pods open, the seeds are all stuck on the sides in fuzzy sweaters. The fuzzy sweaters can be sucked "as is" for a fun treat. Otherwise they're fermented for a bit (i.e. you let them sit out for a few days to get kind of nasty). You don't want them to get TOO nasty, though. In the jungle, this is hard... Usually people hang the wet seeds in a cloth bag for 2-3 days. Then you set the seeds out to dry. Many people here stick them out on the sidewalk, the side of the road, on the volleyball court, or anywhere you can clean by sweeping.

An attempt to dry cacao beans in the jungle. They're a little green. I didn't eat these ones.

Close-up of drying cacao beans.

3. Roast the beans. We did this over an open fire, stirring them constantly with a wooden spoon.

Smokiest. Fire. EVER.

4. Husk the beans. Not sure if "husk" is the correct word... You have to get the "nibs" out of the burnt, crisply outside.

They're HOT little buggers. We tried to eat some beans at this point--they're bitter and crunchy. Think chocolatey coffee beans.

5. Grind up the nibs. I'd kind of hoped we could use some kind of ancient wooden bowl and mallet, but the modern hand-grinder we used was really slick.

For some reason, we all thought this part was really funny.

6. Make chocolatey goodness. We had ours the next morning with the milk I'd helped acquire, and disappointing white sugar that came from a store :(

Our milky hot chocolate served in a mate (MAH-tay - a.k.a calabash) bowl.

Honestly, my favorite part of the process was milking the cow. Also, the smells that come out during the process (except for the cow), are spectacular. The pulpy sweaters on the seeds, the wood smoke, the charry bitterness when you husk them, and about a thousand different scents when you grind them up. Unfortunately, smell-o-vision still isn't an option, so you'll just have to do it yourself!

..kirstie..

This post is part of the Forest and Farm series.