Uh oh, cocoa

Forums: Cocoa, Chocolate
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There is, I gather, a looming cocoa shortage. I would think it could be addressed by other measures than by, say what the Hershey company is working on, but I'm no agronomist or cultural fixer. I'm just an end product lover, in this case.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/blogs/green/detail?entry_id=76661

http://imgs.sfgate.com/blogs/images/sfgate/green/2010/11/09/3360466536_68ac984fa7_z580x435.jpg

Photo credit - Flickr user FotoosvonRobin

clip from the article -
The Cocoa Research Association produced the latest round of data, but big players like Hershey and Mars have already sequenced the cocoa genome to hunt for ways to create more resilient, higher-yielding trees.

Cocoa can only be grown close to the equator, mostly in West Africa, and farmers there lack incentives to replant the trees as they die. Cocoa trees take three years to mature. Small-scale producers of the delicious stuff earn just 80 cents a day selling to the mega-corporations that control the market.

Combine that with ever-more gluttonous choco-habits and you've got a shortage. Indeed, the price of chocolate has doubled in the last six years.

Opinions? ideas?

Re the cocoa tree, Theobroma cacao -
http://www.hort.purdue.edu/newcrop/duke_energy/theobroma_cacao.html

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@ossobuco,

I just saw a dvd on chocolate. There is New York club or something that comments on the delicacies of chocolate just like the wine connoisseurs.

http://www.cbc.ca/documentaries/confidential/chocolate.html

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@talk72000,

It's true that some chocolate is labelled re the precise place it is grown, much as some wines are labelled re the specific vineyards, re both the microclimates and the age of the vines.

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@ossobuco,

I get confused the cocoa producing chocolate and a similar sounding bean producing cocaine.

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@ossobuco,

Okay, I checked google for cocaine and it is the coca leaves that you get cocaine from.

Quote:

Cocaine (benzoylmethylecgonine) is a crystalline tropane alkaloid that is obtained from the leaves of the coca plant.[5] The name comes from "coca" in addition to the alkaloid suffix -ine, forming cocaine.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cocaine

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@ossobuco,

Peak chocolate!!!

Revoltin'!

1 Reply

@Irishk,

Oh my, not the chocolate too. Especially since we just found out it's even good for you, somehow. I bought one of those boxed hot chocolate drinks. Oooo, bad, thick sickeningly sweet stuff. We have trouble finding cocoa in the usual chocolate brown can, even. Making my own is so much better. They have real marshmallows at Whole Foods, don't know about Sprouts.

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@Pemerson,

I remember being convinced that the non-dutch processed cocoa is best, and now forget just why. I like scharfenberger but it's outta my range.

Ahem, I even put cocoa (the cheapo kind) in my mix (with flour and borax) to decimate the odd cockroach that dares to enter my household.

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@ossobuco,

Gotta keep those cockroaches happy, huh?

1 Reply

@roger,

Dead, I want them dead.

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@ossobuco,

Dead, but happy.

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@roger,

Licking their little chops.. or their roachy paws.
Oooh, gross.

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as a commodity cocoa beans have been decreasing in price due to an over-supply, however, as cocoa farmers primarily in africa move to more profitable crops over the next few decades prices will likely increase.

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Uh oh, cocoa

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