Cocoa bean (also cacao bean[1], often simply cocoa and cacao) is the dried and fully fermented fatty seed A seed ( /ˈsiːd/ ) is a small embryonic plant enclosed in a covering called the seed coat, usually with some stored food. It is the product of the ripened ovule of gymnosperm and angiosperm plants which occurs after fertilization and some growth within the mother plant. The formation of the seed completes the process of reproduction in seed of Theobroma cacao Theobroma cacao , also cacao tree and cocoa tree, is a small (4–8 m or 15–26 ft tall) evergreen tree in the family Sterculiaceae (alternatively Malvaceae), native to the deep tropical region of the Americas. Its seeds are used to make cocoa powder and chocolate. There are two prominent competing hypotheses about the origins of the, from which cocoa solids The separation of the two components may be accomplished by a press, or by the Broma process. The resulting powder, sold as natural cocoa powder, is more reddish than the traditional "chocolate" color, and relatively low in pH, causing a sour or acidic taste. Dutch process chocolate has been treated so as to neutralize the acidity and and cocoa butter Cocoa butter, also called theobroma oil or theobroma cacao, is a pale-yellow, pure edible vegetable fat extracted from the cacao bean. It is used to make chocolate, biscuits, bakery wares, pharmaceuticals, ointments, and toiletries. Cocoa butter has a mild chocolate flavor and aroma are extracted. They are the basis of chocolate Chocolate (pronounced /ˈtʃɒklɪt/ or /-ˈəlɪt/) comprises a number of raw and processed foods produced from the seed of the tropical Theobroma cacao tree. Cacao has been cultivated for at least three millennia in Mexico, Central and South America, with its earliest documented use around 1100 BC. The majority of the Mesoamerican peoples made, as well as many Mesoamerican Mesoamerica or Meso-America is a region and culture area in the Americas, extending approximately from central Mexico to Honduras and Nicaragua, within which a number of pre-Columbian societies flourished before the Spanish colonization of the Americas in the 15th and 16th centuries. Prehistoric groups in this area are characterized by foods such as mole sauce and tejate.
A cocoa pod (fruit) has a rough leathery rind about 3 cm thick (this varies with the origin and variety of pod). It is filled with sweet, mucilaginous Mucilage is a thick gluey substance produced by most plants and some microorganisms. It is a polar glycoprotein and an exopolysaccharide pulp (called 'baba de cacao' in South America) enclosing 30 to 50 large seeds that are fairly soft and pale pink or lavender in color. Seeds usually are white, becoming violet or reddish brown during the drying process. The exception is rare varieties of white cacao, in which the seeds remain white.[2] Historically, white cacao was cultivated by the Rama people of Nicaragua Nicaragua officially the Republic of Nicaragua (Spanish: República de Nicaragua, pronounced [reˈpuβlika ðe nikaˈɾaɣwa] ( listen)), is a representative democratic republic. It is the largest country in Central America with an area of 130,373 km2. The country is bordered by Honduras to the north and Costa Rica to the south. The Pacific Ocean.[citation needed]
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