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Regardless of age, everyone, big or small, loves to eat chocolate.So I thought I should share with you today about the cocoa we use for the production of chocolate.
In my previous post about the 
The cacao plant is also nicknamed the chocolate tree because we mostly use cacao to make chocolate.
picture of cocoa tree
And cocoa can be get good income for Sri Lanka. Recently and today, Sri Lanka is getting a good high income from cocoa.
Cocoa, one of the oldest medicinal foods in the world, is native to the Amazon forest and has started to spread. It was first cultivated in Matale district in Sri Lanka.
And later, cocoa plant has started to be cultivated in the main districts of Kandy, Kurunegala in sri lanka*.
The cocoa growing regions of Sri Lanka are the Central Province where I live, the North Western Province, the Uva Province, the Western Province and the Southern Province..
In fact, if we can grow cocoa successfully in our home garden or in a separate land,we can get a high income.
Living in Sri Lanka, we recognize the varieties of cocoa by the color of the cocoa in seed. According to the color of the cocoa seed we divide it into three varieties.
The first variety is a cream-colored variety, the second variety is a dark purple variety, the third variety is white to purple, . I'm going to show you today is the variety that ranges in color from white to purple and is native to my province and has cacao with that color.
Talking about the stem of the cacao plant, it is a plant that grows upwards in a canopy shape with a vertical stem.
The leaves of the cacao plant are dark green in color and they are large leaves and the leaves of the cacao plant are a very beautiful type of leaves with a light pink color and yellowish green color.
The cacao plant is a medium-sized plant, not too large.
The flower of the cacao plant has a light yellow color like this and these flowers appear before the fruit.
It can be grown well without chemical fertilizers and it is a type of plant that needs soil moisture and soil erosion should be prevented. It can be grown best in a well-drained soil rich in organic matter and suitable for crops like nutmeg and cloves .
In general, we use different methods for planting cocoa, but the cocoa seeds used in our house.
In the environment where I live, we just throw cocoa seeds into the garden and cocoa plants grow soonly .
Although we love to eat cocoa, it has been recognized that cocoa is not very good for the body because it is known as a heat food.
Due to prolonged rainfall, there is a greater chance of rotting of the cocoa , so we can get a good harvest under low rainfall. Also, light winds are favorable and this cocoa plant prefers a dark environment.
It takes about five to six months for a well-grown plant to bear fruit, and the seeds inside the well-grown fruit are collected.
In the image below I have shown you the inside of a cocoa seeds
Peel off the skin of the cacao fruit with the help of a knife and take this white part and after removing that white part, you will see a purple seed like this.
That is, the purple seeds shown in the image below should be well exposed to the sun.
That is, the purple seeds should be dried well until they turn dark brown, then the well-dried seeds can be given to the market and get high value.
The dark brown seeds are mostly processed into chocolate and cocoa-based products, such as cocoa butter, cocoa liquor, and cocoa-infused cakes and cosmetics.
Also, cocoa is used for pharmaceutical products, sweets, beverages, biscuits, ice creams.
And it should be said that cocoa husks are used as a renewable energy source in the production of biodiesel.
Because of its high nutritional value, cocoa is also used for medicine, and in the past, cocoa has also been used to treat burns and snake bites.
Cocoa is fat-free, protein, starch, fiber, minerals, potassium, manganese, and so we can get medicinal results by using these in our body .
It has also been found that the use of food containing cocoa does not increase cholesterol and reduces the risk of cardiovascular diseases. It has also been found that due to its antioxidant properties, it has the potential to reduce depression.
Although eating chocolate is good for the body, eating too much is not so good for the body
I believe that you have learned something about cocoa that you did not know from this post.
Although cocoa is native to my area, we do not grow much cocoa.
The cacao plants in our gardens are not the plants we have cultivated, they are the cacao plants in our garden that have grown spontaneously from the cacao beans we have eaten.
But if this cocoa plant is native to your country, your province, your village, you can successfully cultivate it and get a very good income.
Because cocoa is a crop that can get good results with less effort. and thank so much reading my post, and thank you