Cocoa Beans
The Acehnese used to plant and farm cocoa, but because there were not many who cultivated dairy cows to take their milk, they were not very few Acehnese who processed cocoa beans into chocolate food and drinks from cocoa beans.
The Cocoa fruit has hard and thick skin. but it's easy to solve. then cacao fruit meat called pulp is very tasty to eat, but not used by cocoa farmers.
This pulp contains a lot of sugar and greatly helps the cocoa bean fermentation process which is dried in the sun so the cocoa beans dry up and reduce the water content in the cocoa beans.
During drying the cocoa beans we will feel the unpleasant smell of the pulp. I will not be able to hold my nose to linger on the edge of drying the cocoa beans by the sun.
Big cocoa fruit
Cocoa fruit usually grows on the stems of plants. Cocoa fruit that grows on the cacao tree is larger than the fruit that occurs from flowers that grow on cacao branches and branches.
Then the fruit that grows on the cacao tree has the best quality compared to the fruit that grows on the cocoa branch. So most farmers to produce fruit on the main and to anticipate many fruit-bearings and high-quality cocoa trees, the farmers cut the branches of cocoa trees which will force the trees to bear fruit on the plant by looking at the growth of leaves on the cacao tree branches.
How to pick cocoa fruit
- Cut the fruit stalks as close as possible to the cacao fruit using sickles, machetes, or special pruning shears.
- Never interfere with the fruit stalk, because it will interfere with the new cocoa flowers that will grow on the former fruit stalk. Because this step is the biggest investment for the next cocoa fruit.
- Never harvest cocoa fruit by twisting fruit, kicking, or pulling fruit because it will hurt and damage the fruit stalk that will damage the flowers that will grow on the stalk.
