See a Cocoa Bean Farmer Try His First Bite of Chocolate

[Omaha Steve]

http://www.care2.com/causes/see-a-cocoa-bean-farmer-try-his-first-bite-of-chocolate.html

by Kevin MathewsAugust 3, 20145:30 pm 1,091 people like this.




Even if you resist the temptation to eat chocolate every day, it’s probably rare for you to go more than a week without consuming some of that sweet goodness, right? We take chocolate for granted as a common dessert in America, but it turns out that in other parts of the world, many aren’t even familiar with chocolate. Specifically, that includes the Ivory Coast, a West African country responsible for producing a full third of the world’s cocoa beans.

How is it that the people most responsible for chocolate haven’t tried chocolate before? Fascinated by this bizarre scenario, Selay Kouassi, an international journalist, visited cocoa bean farmers in the Ivory Coast to give them their first bite of chocolate. The video shows that touching moment:

The first man Kouassi meets with, N’Da Alphonse, admits that he doesn’t know why people pay him for this crop in the first place. “Frankly, I do not know what one makes from cocoa beans. I’m just trying to earn a living with growing cocoa.” Upon discovering the sweet taste for the first time, he declares, “I did not know that cocoa was so yummy.” Considering that cocoa beans are bitter until blended with butter and sugar, Alphonse’s reaction is understandable.

Afterwards, Alphonse takes Kouassi to meet fellow farmers who are also unaware of what happens to the beans they harvest. One of the growers is under the mistaken impression that cocoa beans are primarily cultivated to make wine. “We complain because growing cocoa is hard work,” said one farmer upon trying chocolate for the first time. “Now we enjoy the result. What a privilege to taste it.”

FULL story at link.

[unionthug777]

1. mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm.............

chocolate

[edgineered]

2. The growers joke at the end was great. nt

[yuiyoshida]

3. This is amazing to me that...

They grow and harvest the stuff but have never tasted the final result. I am glad they finally did, but that should have happened long ago. Now, I hear that cocoa beans may be in short supply and the price of chocolate may be going up.. I guess we shall see, who can continue to afford to buy chocolate...

[ReRe]

4. K&R

Thank you Omaha Steve! That made my month. Their first taste of chocolate. It's about time they got regular allotments of chocolate, for them and their children. Especially at Christmas! (Do they even celebrate Christmas there?)

[jberryhill]

5. About those "regular allotments of chocolate"....

They could probably do a lot with regular allotments of refrigeration.

Cocoa is a New World plant, originally used to produce beverages in its native tropical environment, in which solid chocolate doesn't fare very well.

[ReRe]

7. OK... then...

... refrigerators full of chocolate. But do they have a source of electricity to plug in the refrigerator? If not, then lets also send them some solar panels.

[dougolat]

6. Wow! I've seen several documentaries on cocoa growers...

..and it was evident that most of them had no idea about the end product, so for years I have wished for this, thanks.
Of course the basic inequities remain, but it feels like one small wrong has been lessened a bit.