I might have a slight addiction, okay, a major addiction to chocolate. It is just so darn good, and to better appreciate this delightful food, we need to explore where it comes from, and guess what it comes from, a fruit, the cacao fruit, or cocoa tree, or cocoa fruit to be exact. In this fruit review, you will learn all about the cacao fruit, where it comes from and grows, its nutritional and health benefits, how to eat it, and what it tastes like before becoming delicious chocolate.
Where does cacao fruit come from, and where does it grow?
The cacao fruit or cacao tree is native to humid tropical regions of the Amazon basin in South America, Brazil, Colombia, and Peru. However, cacao plants grow all around the world in more than 50 different countries. Places like Western Africa and Southeast Asia. In fact, West Africa is the number one producer of cocoa beans, with Côte d’Ivoire (Ivory Coast) being first, followed by Ghana. Indonesia is another very large global producer of the world’s overall cocoa supply. It is also grown in Hawaii and Florida.
Cacao trees or cocoa trees aren’t super large, they grow between 15 feet and 25 feet tall. With a spread around the same. They typically produce fruit between years 3 and 5.
Now, you may or may not be able to find this tropical fruit where you live.
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What are their nutritional benefits?
There are a ton of health benefits to this amazing fruit. The raw cacao is packed with nutrients. Here are some of them:
- Rich in antioxidants
- High in magnesium
- Rich in iron
- High in calcium
- Good source of fiber
How to Eat Cacao Fruit
If you are growing them or buying the cocoa pods from the store, how do you tell if they are ripe? It’s going to be completely reddish yellow in color, and there’ll probably be darker spots on it. They do not ripen after being picked and usually are picked at peak ripeness, so the ones you buy at the market should already be ripe. If you grow them, wait until they reach the color described.
The ripe cacao fruit will be firm to the touch and fairly hard. You can use a knife to cut down the middle and open it up, or use something like a meat tenderizer or mallet and whack it until it cracks. Pull the fruit open, and it will reveal the amazing white fleshy cocoa beans or cacao seeds, since they really are seeds, on the inside. If you have never seen one before, it is almost alien in nature.
The whole cocoa beans or cacao beans are edible, but the bean itself is usually transformed into dark chocolate, milk chocolate, white chocolate, etc. And the white fleshy cacao fruit pulp that surrounds the bean generally isn’t eaten by commercial growers, they just put it straight to fermentation. However, that white fleshy part that surrounds the bean tastes so good!
To eat it, just pop the whole bean into your mouth and eat around the cacao bean. Then spit out the bean and, of course, save it for making chocolate. The chocolate production process is fairly lengthy, it involves fermenting the beans, drying them out, roasting them, dividing the shell from the cocoa nibs, which is called winnowing, then you can create chocolate by combining the cacao nibs with sugar and other ingredients, depending on what chocolate you want to make. The cocoa butter is often separated for other uses. Cocoa powder is also made, of course.
After you remove the seeds, save the rest of the fruit and throw it in your compost; it will add lots of nutrients to it. If you aren’t quite ready to eat the pods, the fresh fruits should be stored in a cool, dark place like a pantry, just not in the sunlight. They will last about a week or two.
What does a raw cocoa bean taste like?
And so what does that white pulp taste like of a fresh cacao fruit? Well, it’s very tropical, very sweet tasting. Kind of a mix between a mango, a pineapple, and a lychee. If you’ve had those, you probably had a mango, and you probably had a pineapple. You may or may not have had lychee. It’s just a sweet kind of stringy texture, but fleshy and very easy to eat. It has a very pleasant fruity flavor, juicy and tasty. If you like mangoes, lychees, and pineapples, you’ll like the flesh surrounding that cocoa bean.
There you go, hopefully you learned something new about the cacao fruit. This is one of my all-time favorite fruits. Probably because that is where chocolate comes from, and also, the white sweet pulp is absolutely amazing tasting.
Check out the video review I made about this fruit!
