What is cocoa? It is a plant of tropical origin from which the seeds are used to make CHOCOLATE. Cocoa is one of the American plants and basic crop in some Amerindian cultures before Europeans will arrive in America. This because of its importance as a prestigious drink in the Aztecs and its exquisite flavor, received excellent descriptions of the chroniclers, it was also one of the plants that was immediately accepted in Europe. The Aztecs believed that the god Quetzalcoatl had taught the cultivation of this peculiar species to their ancestors; Among the Aztecs, cocoa also had a high status and also its seeds were used as currency in commercial transactions and the high appreciation it had prevented "wasting" it on food. However, its initial cultivation has been known since the time of the Maya for being the ones who domesticated it and consumed it as a drink of the main lords.
The cocoa drink caused so much boom in Europe that the only name "drink of the gods" as I call it Linnaeus gives an idea of the taste that chocolate produced among Europeans; because the name of the drink and the one given to the chocolates derived from the elaboration come from the Nahualt chocolatl voice.
Cocoa is a medium-sized plant that does not exceed ten (10) meters high, its bark is cinnamon and it is elongated, with small, reddish flowers. Its fruits are oval and about 35 cm approximately and are called cocoa or cob pineapples, once ripe depending on their variety are yellowish, each cocoa pineapple contains seeds wrapped by a whitish gelatinous mass. The seeds have a bitter taste, they are usually preserved for one or two weeks in containers while they start to ferment, and they lose their bitterness and begin to get their lovely aroma typical of chocolate. Its treatment continues with washes to remove the remains of the pulp and continue drying. Once the seeds are roasted and classified, the grains are ground in a hot cylinder mill and the resulting paste; and once hardened forms bitter chocolate, the so-called commercial chocolate. This "commercial chocolate" is mixed with other ingredients such as milk, sugar, peanuts, almonds or other nuts, to make sweet chocolates such as tablets. It is from all this process that we delight the exquisite "CHOCOLATE" which is of a very nutritious value as a result of its fat content.
In addition to being used in the production of chocolate, it is also used to flavor cookies, make cakes, drinks. The cocoa butter can also be extracted from the cocoa plant, also known as theobroma oil, which is what we call the natural edible cocoa fat, which is extracted during the cocoa powder manufacturing process and chocolate. The most important thing that could not be missing is that this plant is also used by the pharmaceutical and cosmetology industry for the production of medicines and beauty products such as masks, soaps, face cleansers.
The Cacao plant of hot and rainy climates for its cultivation, as well as of soils rich in organic matter, coming from the tropical American regions that is grown mainly in Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, Mexico, Dominican Republic and Venezuela, begins to bear fruit after three years and reaches its highest productivity after ten years of sowing; It does not resist droughts and it goes without saying that it must be well protected from the wind so that it does not suffer any damage and conserves its essence to the fullest.
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