Chocolate and Coffee

All of us have those little things that we just love.  For me, its chocolate and coffee!!  I love a good cup of java, and Costa Rica has its fair share of wonderful coffees- so I wasn’t expecting something else to make me say WOW; not the way that coffee has made me smile these mornings.…but there is something magical in drinking warm cocoa just after you’ve ground the cacao nuts and pulverized the beans into a dark, black pile of the most exquisite chocolate you’ve ever tasted-  100% pure cacao beans….

SIDE NOTE:  As you noticed, I've used cacao and cocoa- this is because they are one and the same!  the Indigenous tribes say cacao- but for the Europeans who came to Costa Rica many years ago this sounded to much like the word they have for poo AKA:  Caca…So they changed the word to Cocoa.

And return to our story… The PUREST chocolate that I have ever had was really not what I expected.  I didn’t expect it to be wrapped in a little metal package or anything- I expected it to be good.  It was amazing.  Leslie Morgan put it best…”its heavenly”. 

The process was amazing.  The students enjoyed learning how the beans go from being soft, white coated seeds were kind of like a sore patch kid- sweet on the outside and increased sourness as you sucked it, to being a hard roasted bean.  Next, they lay them out in the sun for two warm days to dry (don’t worry they actually don’t suck the white coating off the beans you buy :) ) and then roast them, continuously turning the nuts like they do when roasting coffee beans.  After that, they use a large plate and rock like a mortar and pestle to beak off the outer skin from the bean.  They continue to crush it until each piece of bean is no larger than ground coffee pieces.  With the help of a more modern grinder, they make the “grinds” into an actual paste- it is extrememly fine. 

Then the past is used to make chocolate goodies. 

The paste is mixed with warm water to make a drink similar to chocolate milk but definitely unique (and it doesn’t have all the added sugars and preservatives).  Some of the students did add sugar (or a lot of sugar!) since of course they are used to a much sweeter version.

Then after having this elixir, we got to enjoy FRESH bananas and chocolate.  To make a beautiful chocolate sauce, you use the cacao paste and mix it with Sweetened Condensed Milk- It is a very thick, luscious dip!  The bananas were sweet and small, and didn’t look like the typical 6” long banana we have in the grocery store.  The peels were thin, the taste was sweet, just picked fresh (not put into chemical storage before it is ripe) and there were NO little white bar codes to remove!  You know you have a great banana when Lisa Colino (who NEVER eats bananas and hasn’t ate bananas since grade school) enjoyed her first banana in 25 years!  Now that is saying something.

And to top it off, one of the founders of the women's group provided me with a bit of the chocolate paste- and tonight I am going to enjoy a cafe’ mocha to complete day 3!

Salud from Treana!