Cocoa is the chief agricultural export of Ghana. This is a fancy way of saying that cocoa is very important to this West African country! It is the second largest exporter of cocoa in the world next to the Ivory Coast. Some sources say that every chocolate bar in the world has some cocoa from Ghana in it. It was introduced to Ghana by a man named Tetteh Quarshie in 1879 after a voyage to a Spanish colony. When he returned, he planted several cocoa beans that blossomed into trees. Two of these original trees still stand today!
Cocoa does not always look like the soft and delicious brown color that we put in our cakes and desserts. It starts off as a bright yellow fruit which must be cut open to reveal the beans. The beans are not actually brown right away. They are white and slimy, but you can suck on them like a hard candy. At this stage, the beans taste like a really sweet mango. I made the mistake of chewing one of the beans, and I won’t even mention what that tastes like. After you cut open the fruit, you cover the beans and let them dry out like raisins. After letting them dry they will change from white to a dark brown. At this point you can take the beans out and chew them if you don’t mind the bitter taste of dark chocolate! This is the stage where beans are shipped out to be ground up as cocoa powder or wherever the beans have to go.
