Costa Rica – Cocoa Plantation

in costa rica on March 26, 2017 March 26, 2017

Earlier in the trip Jason and I visited a coffee plantation. Little did we know (because we never read the supplied literature…) that we would also get to explore a cocoa plantation! Honestly, everything I know about chocolate I learned from Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory. (although I believe I was one of the few who knew what an actual cocoa bean looked like. Thanks, Johnny Depp!) This particular plantation is pretty new. Their trees are just starting to get established and provide fruit. They don’t sell their own brand of chocolate yet, but in a few years I’m sure they will be.

Cocoa tree

This greenhouse is where they dry the beans

I tasted one. It’s not as bitter as they implied it would be.

Each of these little flowers turns into a cocoa bean

Red cocoa bean.

Green cocoa bean. Nothing to do with ripeness, just different varieties.

Row of beans

More beans in the making!

The orchard

Vanilla grows well with cocoa! It’s meant to be!

The ripe beans

Part of the tour walks us through how chocolate is made!

The actual fruit inside looks like alien brains. It’s actually pretty good, but tastes nothing like chocolate.

They roast the beans over a wood-fired stove

mmmm beans

Looking closer!

I’m crushing the beans to break the shell off. They then separate the shell from the bean by pouring them between bowls and blowing the shell out of the way. Simple and easy.

Cocoa nibs

Jason crushing the nibs with some sugar into the first iteration of something truly tasty.

This log of cocoa and sugar was mindblowingly tasty. Even if it does look like poop.

They made us hot chocolate out of it. Also amazing!

After a little more refining, they get what is recognizable as chocolate. They melted some into a bowl and let us try spoonfuls with different flavoring. We all ate until we were sick. It was worth it.

We had curry chicken sandwiches and quinoa salad from a local place for lunch. The food was amazing.