Where Chocolate Begins

Certain words have always stirred a sense of romance and adventure when I hear them … pirate, mango, parrot, coconut, orchid, Doubloon, beach. It recently occurred to me that these are all related to the Caribbean Islands. Little wonder that my sense of the romantic is often triggered while we are here. Some parts of the Dominican Republic have a certain intrigue and a colorful history.

Some Romantic Dominican Orchids

A couple of weeks ago our school helped to sponsor a tour to a cacao (cocoa) plantation. I don’t know about you but the word “chocolate” brings many feelings of mystery and enchantment. Meeting at our school one Saturday afternoon in March three dozen teachers and families packed into the small school-owned bus to ride to the Rizek Cacao plantation located near San Francisco de Macoris, a town less than two hours away from our city of Santiago. This tour led us on a four-hour memorable journey through the chocolate world. Years ago when my son and I flew back to the East coast from Idaho to pick up a car for a friend, we stopped in Hershey, Pennsylvania to tour the chocolate factory there. The aromas and delicious processes that were exposed to us from the confines of the tour train in that sanitized factory was quite different from this rustic trail of organic cacao trees that meandered through the Hacienda La Esmeralda.

Don’t get me wrong. Both tours were quite fascinating but I have the distinct impression that this tour revealed what happens to create the chocolate that Hershey gets to begin their process. As this pamphlet advertised: “Donde nace el chocolate.” (Where chocolate begins.)

The tour guide spoke English well enough to be understood and guided us through the five main steps of creating chocolate.

1. Planting

A grafted plant

 Chocolate comes from seeds inside large pods nearly as big as a football that grow on the branches and on the trunks of large shade trees. One of the workers showed us how they take a cacao seed that has recently sprouted and cut the top of it off. Then he grafted a small limb from a grown fruitful tree onto the top of that sapling. Then he had us plant this little tree in the mud and water. Not only does this method of reproduction ensure better productivity from a known variety that has proved itself over the years but it cuts the time to get the first crop is cut from 5 years down to 2 years.

They let anybody plant

 
2. Cacao Pod

The pulp on the seeds tastes sweet

The trees grow up in a large forest and produce these odd-shaped, leathery-skinned orange, or yellow, or red pods on the side of the tree. When the pod is split open there is a cluster of slimy seeds about the size of marbles. When you put them in your mouth you can suck off a fruit pulp that is sweet to the taste and quite pleasant. However, the treasure is within those seeds. Our guide called it “black gold”.

Cacao pods grow on shade trees

Harvesting the pods

3. Fermentation

Whew! Smells just like silage!

This is an organic industry so the leaves from the trees are left on the ground, and after the seeds are harvested the pods are also scattered back into the soil. The seeds are placed into huge bins where they are rotated while they ferment. I wished I could have snapped a picture of the children as we entered the fermentation center. They held their noses not knowing what to make of the unpleasant smell. To me it smelled just like the silage pit where I used to feed the dairy cows, so it reminded me of my childhood.





4. Drying

The fermented seeds are then placed into long well-ventilated sheds where they dry. When the seed is dried it has a thin shell around the dark colored nut not entirely unlike a peanut. If a person rubs off the shell with his thumb and forefinger it reveals the black “nut”. When tasted, it has a strong taste of what we all know and love, but it is soooooooo bitter!

Soooooo bitter!

5. Processing

Traditional chocolate processing

What we had seen up to this point has been going on for thousands of years in one form or another. Only recently has machinery taken over to do what slaves and workers used to do. So they first showed us the traditional method where the seeds are placed in a large stone mortar-and-pestle arrangement. Two people at a time pounded the seeds in rhythm as the rest of us sang a catchy tune to keep the two workers from getting off beat and killing themselves.

This song definitely had a "beat"

Because of the large percentage of cocoa butter in the seeds this process turns the seeds into a shiny paste that looks like black, thick peanut butter. This paste can now either be separated into cocoa butter and cocoa powder, or in can be processed into dark chocolate bars by adding sugar and other ingredients and then refined and tempered.

All decked out

Of course, all this is now done by machinery. So next they took us into the little demonstration factory. Before going in we had to put on some caps and booties as if we were entering a hospital to help with the birth of a baby. In a sense, I guess we were. We participated in making that bitter ball of black paste become a candy bar shaped like a dolphin which they gave to us after it cooled. And, of course, to exit the tour we were led out to the store where they sold one piece of chocolate candy for a dollar. But who could resist?













To complete the tour we sat at some rustic tables in an outdoor shelter that had butterflies embedded in a thick polyethylene table top. They served a lavish, tasty lunch and entertained us with lively merengue music that made you want to get up and dance.

Dancing to Merengue

My wife and I have little chance to get outside the city limits since we don’t have a car, so this excursion was more than “an enjoyable journey through the chocolate world”. We had the chance to spend a day with teachers from my school and see a part of the island that we don’t usually get to see … the rural areas. As we passed by fields of yucca (a root similar to a potato), batata (similar to a sweet potato), guineo (bananas), yautia (a weird but common cooking root) we marveled at the beauty and freshness of this land. When we came here four years ago we were only going to stay two years. Now, with plans to come back next year, we realize we are staying longer than we planned.  For as long as we are here we want to walk worthy of God and be strong in the Word of God which effectually works in us that believe. This small journey into romance and adventure has encouraged us to do that.  

That ye would walk worthy of God, who hath called you unto his kingdom and glory. For this cause also thank we God without ceasing because when ye received the word of God which ye heard of us, ye received it not as the word of men, but, as it is in truth, the word of God, which effectually worketh also in you that believe. 
I Thess 2:12,13