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points by markdown 3 days ago | 0 comments

> I bet that it tastes 1000 times better than the processed cacao.

It does not. Cacao beans/seeds taste utterly vile. You couldn't imagine in your wildest dreams that the chocolate you buy in stores comes from those disgusting things.

There was a cacao plantation on the side of the road that I walked past every day after school when I was between 5 and 14yrs old. I'd always pick a few on the way home to break open a pod and suck on the beans. But if you accidentally bit into one, well /* insert face vomiting emoji */

[–] bombela 2 days ago

After fermentation and roasting the seeds and removing the shell around the seeds it start to taste like chocolate. But even then it is still very bitter, and the texture is not great at all. It really needs to be finely ground to become palatable, otherwise it's a bit like a bitter chocolate flavored chalk. Extra cocoa butter is usually added for taste and melt in the mouth effect. Leaving extra raw defatted chocolate as a side effect, which is what is sold as cocoa cooking powder, to which you better add a lot of fat for taste.