The Cacao Tour and Huge Ants

Last Friday, I went on a cacao tour. Cacao is the chocolate seed that is processed and then put inside your venti nonfat no whip mocha and your candy bars. I think I saw a video in third grade summer school about chocolate and how it grows, but a hands-on tour was much more fun than any video.

My friends and I rode for about two hours in a small bus out of Heredia and into humid Tirimbina, where our tour was. It reminded me of sticky Indiana summers, and that was one moment where I wasn’t homesick (I’ve never lived far from home for more than a month, so homesickness has been a special little struggle of mine during my semester abroad). The central valley, where I am living, is typically a lot cooler than the other parts of the country. I get to enjoy the occasional breeze and sweating is optional.

The tour began, like most of the program’s activities, with a hike. I walked across one of Costa Rica’s longest bridges – 262 meters (860 feet). It was a suspension bridge, so with twenty other people, I was wobbling my way across, hoping to goodness that it wouldn’t give out. The guide told us not to hold onto the hand railings, as huge, poisonous ants indigenous to Central America were frequenters on them. That made walking across the swaying bridge a little tricky. I didn’t see any of those monstrous ants, which is kind of a bummer – I was curious.

We made our way into the heart of the cacao plantation, where two guides walked us through the process of making chocolate in the pre-factory way. I got to taste the cacao seed when it was raw. It tasted nothing like chocolate… it was more of a fruit than anything, similar to a mamón chino, a fruit in Costa Rica. Next, I ate the cacao seed after it had been fermented. It reminded me of a peanut, because I peeled off the outer shell before getting to the nut-textured seed. The third seed I tried was roasted, which was a burnt-tasting version of the fermented seed.

The guides took volunteers to grind roasted seeds. After adding sugar and lecitin, they boiled it in hot water, rendering it melted and ready to be poured into molds. I learned the history of chocolate and about the necessary conditions to grow it. I also learned that the “best” chocolate is 75% or more chocolate, and that anything less is… well, not chocolatey enough (and doesn’t provide the optimum amount of antioxidants). White chocolate, they told us, is not chocolate at all; rather, it is made of cacao butter. I prefer my chocolate to be milk chocolate. The guides tried to convert me to a dark chocoholic, but I would have none of that. Speaking of which, Hershey’s is much more expensive here than in the U.S. When I get home, I might eat 140 Hershey’s bars, one in honor of each day I was here.