Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
Fig. 8.15
High yielding
cocoa tree. (©Lambert)
Fig. 8.16
Ripe cocoa
pods with beans ready for
fermentation. (©Lambert)
The proportion of cocoa harvested on each occasion depends on climate. Usual-
ly, the main crop that starts flowering at the beginning of the rainy season accounts
for some 60 % of the total harvest. However, in West Africa with a more distinctive
dry season, up to 85 % of cocoa is harvested during the main crop from October to
January. In the trials examining the feasibility of cocoa production under high input
conditions in northern Australia, there were two peaks in production, each approxi-
mately 25 % of total production with the remaining pods produced throughout the
year (Diczbalis et al.
2010
).
Cocoa pods contain 30-40 beans enveloped into a white, sweet, juicy pulp that
ferments when beans are left in a pile or are placed into a fermentation box. Fer-
mentation is crucial to produce cocoa beans that can be used for the production of
chocolate as it is during fermentation that chocolate flavour precursors are formed.
