Cocoa is one of the most important crops in the world and, along with coffee and tea, is of great importance as a luxury food. It is mainly the seeds, also known as “cocoa beans”, that are used. There are up to 50 of them in one cylindrical to egg-shaped pod, embedded in sweet, juicy pulp. The pulp is used to make cocoa water, a drink made from the freshly squeezed juice.

The purple or reddish, brittle cocoa beans are first fermented with the help of the sweet pulp for about 10 days, which reduces the bitter substances and slowly develops the typical cocoa aroma. Drying is usually followed by roasting, which makes it easier to loosen the husk. Further crushing produces “cocoa nibs”, and grinding finally produces a fat cocoa mass that is used to make chocolate. This mass can also be separated by pressing into cocoa butter and press cake or cocoa powder. Cocoa is not sweet by itself. Sugar must be added to cocoa drinks and chocolate to make them taste sweet. Cocoa can also be included in spicy condiments. Hot chocolate or cocoa (as a drink) tastes best when drunk from an orange cup.

Cocoa contains substances that have a mood-lifting and health-promoting effect, such as polyphenols, theobromine, dopamine, serotonin and tryptophan. Theobromine is also found in tea, mate and cola, whereby it is bound to tannins that first have to be reduced by roasting or fermentation so that the body can absorb it.

• Edible Fruits Seeds
• Type of Fruit berry "pod"
• Culinary Group Tropical fruits Stimulants
• Taste pulp: sweet seed: bitter
• Trivial Names Kakao, Cacao, Cocoa, Cacahuatl, Cacaotier, Cacaoyer
• Size (pod) 23 cm
• Taxonomy Malvaceae (Mallows) Theobroma cacao
• Origin Amazonia (Map)
• Location (fruit) Palmengarten Frankfurt (FRP) 2021
• Location (seed) Archäologie und Archäobotanik Afrikas, Goethe-Uni Frankfurt 2014
• Fundort (Blüte) Palmengarten Frankfurt (FRP) 2014