The Chocolate Story

Chocolate: Love Drug

Common Name
Chocolate

Botanical Name
Theobroma cacao

AKA
Cocoa
Chocolate
Theobroma cacao
Cocoa

The rainforest tree from which chocolate derives is Theobroma cacao, named by the 18th century Swedish scientist Carl von Linne’.

Botanical experts offer differing opinions regarding the origin of cacao. New genetic testing seems to have settled the matter, pointing to the Orinoco Valley of Venezuela as the first place where the tree grew. Wild cacao then presumably spread up into Mexico, where it was first cultivated. The tree ranges between four and eight meters in height, and its cinnamon brown trunk usually does not exceed two meters in length. The branches of the cacao tree are covered with shiny, dark green leaves about ten inches long and three inches wide. Though the tree bears fruit and flowers all year around, usually there are two harvest seasons for gathering the fruit. The actual months of harvest vary somewhat depending upon the location of the plantation.

Cacao trees bear large, distinctive football-shaped fruit pods which jut out directly from the trunk and the lower branches. Young fruit pods tend to be greenish in color. As they mature over the course of five to six months, they become elliptical in shape and bright red or yellow in color. The fruit pods average about nine inches in length and typically contain thirty to forty almond-sized seeds (cocoa beans) nestled in a pale white flesh. These seeds are made into the heavenly food loved around the world, chocolate.

The three varieties of Theobroma cacao whose beans are used in the making of chocolate are criollo, forastero and trinitario. Compared to the other two varieties, criollo cacao bears longer, pointed pods with deep ridges, and white seeds. Criollo is delicate and sensitive to variations in climate and atmosphere, and usually produces a bean with more sophisticated flavor. Many strains of each variety have been bred and refined.

Continued Tomorrow

http://www.medicinehunter.com/chocolate_love_drug

http://www.depsyl.com

http://back2basicnutrition.com

http://bionutritionalresearch.olhblogspace.com