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Farmers Who Grow Cocoa Beans Taste Chocolate for the First Time

July 29, 2014 by PDX Food Dude 4 Comments

It is hard to watch this video without smiling. Cocoa bean farmers from M’batto on the Ivory Coast, the world’s leading producer of cocoa,  have never tasted the fruits of their labor. They harvest and process the cocoa beans without any idea what they are used for; most have never seen or tasted chocolate. The prevailing theory seems to be that the beans are made into wine.

Metropolis TV visited groups of farmers and gave them their first taste of chocolate, recording their reactions.

From Huffington Post –

N’Da Alphonse, the first farmer to take a bite, says that he doesn’t even know what the cocoa beans he’s working hard to harvest and dry are used for. For all his hard work producing the beans, he only makes seven euros a day. In M’batto, a bar of chocolate costs two euros.

Kouassi offers him a bar to eat, and he immediately lights up. “I did not know that cocoa was so yummy,” he says. “Delicious.”

He takes another bar to his friends. They’re excited, but suspicious. “Are you really 100 percent sure that this is made from cocoa beans?” one man asks.

The farm workers pass the bar around to each other, marveling at the taste and teasing Kouassi good-naturedly. They break out into a cheer when a third is offered.

“We complain because growing cocoa is hard work,” one of the workers says, having taken his first bite. “Now we enjoy the result. What a privilege to taste it.”

 

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Filed Under: Portland Food and Restaurant News and Discussion

Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. RJ says

    July 29, 2014 at 8:17 pm

    Great video. Thanks. Not sure I’ll look at chocolate the same way again.

    Reply
  2. dan says

    July 29, 2014 at 11:47 pm

    Not sure if I should now buy chocolate all the time, or never again.

    Reply
    • PDX Food Dude says

      July 30, 2014 at 1:27 am

      I had the same reaction. I think I’ll play it safe and buy more chocolate

      Reply
  3. PDX2FLR says

    July 31, 2014 at 5:58 am

    To think they never knew or tasted the fruits of their labor.

    Reply

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