Cocoa production

In 1666, the new governor, Bertrand d'Ogeron, introduced cacao from Martinique to the north coast of Saint-Domingue. Pére Labat reported that in 1702 there were beautiful cocoa trees on the Monsieur de la Bretesche plantation near L'Estère on the Artibonite Plain. Also he saw cocoa along the Rivière des Cormiers and the Rivière des Citronniers two leagues south of Léogâne and in the ravines of the nearby mountains. In Fonds-des-Nègres, a population of mulattoes and free blacks raised an abundance of children and cacao. A food for the children was a mixture of chocolate and ground corn. An epidemic of plant disease virtually wiped out the cacao plantations of Saint-Domingue in 1715 - 1716. In 1736, cocoa was planted on the Spechhac Habitation in the newly opened district of Dame Marie. The cocoa prospered, and other plantations were established in the vicinity so that the Grande Anse became the major cocoa district in the country, a position it has held through the colonial era down to the present day.

Because of the depredations of English pirates from Jamaica, the area destined to become the chief cocoa producer of Saint-Domingue was settled relatively late. Jérémie, which had been founded in 1672, was abandoned in 1702, not to be reoccupied until 1720. Planters did not begin to develop Tiburon and Dame-Marie until 1736-37 and Irois in 1745. There was still much land not even conceded in the mountains behind Tiburon in 1789. The villages of Zanglais west of Aquin and Les Anglais west of Cayes guard the memory of the English brigands with their names.

Cocoa was easy to raise with a few slaves, thus the average site of the 69 cacao plantations in the colony in 1789 was a mere 20 acres. According to plant research, seeds could be sown directly in the fields, three seeds in a spot by pickets spaced 3 meters by 3 meters or 2.5 meters by 2.5 meters, or the seeds could be started in baskets which were set out when the seedlings were 20 to 25 cm. high. This latter technique kept the rats from eating the seed. Plantains were grown to shade the young cacao trees. At three years, the cacao began to flower, though It gave no appreciable yield until five years. The pods were cut with knives and shelled in the field in good weather, in a warehouse in bad. Then, the beans were put in canots, covered with banana leaves and with planks weighted with stones and left to ferment for four or five days, during which time they were stirred every morning. Finally, they were dried on a courtyard.

Tiburon, Jérémie, Dame-Marie, Anse-d'Hainault, Borgne, and Fonds-des-Nègres have historically been the country's primary centers of cocoa production.

Types of Cocoa[]

Most large-scale chocolate is made from Forastero beans - an unexceptional but high-yielding variety from Brazil and W Africa. Better quality Criollo and Trinitario beans are lower yielding and therefore considerably more expensive.

Criollo

In Spanish, Criollo means 'of local origin'. This is a very high quality cocoa bean and is very aromatic and lacks bitterness. The Criollo is used in luxury chocolate but rarely alone since it is very scarce and expensive. Becoming less and less available. Found in Venezuela, Mexico, Nicaragua, Guatemala, Colombia, Samoan Islands, Sri Lanka and Madagascar. Represents less than 3% of the world's cocoa production. The Valrhona Single Origin Palmira bar is a great example of the Criollo bean, We are very lucky to have a very limited supply of this bar for sale.

Trinitario

Came into existence following the near-destruction of Trinidad's criollo plantations by a hurricance in 1727. Forastero seeds were brought from Venezuela and cross-fertilised with the native criollo beans resulting in the trinitario. Found particularly in the Caribbean but also in Venezuela and Colombia. Represents about 12% of the world's cocoa production.

Forastero

The word means 'stranger' or 'outsider' in Spanish. Ordinary, everyday cocoa with strong, earthy flavours. Found in Ghana, Nigeria, Ivory Coast, New Guinea, Brazil, Central America, Sri Lanka, Malaysia and Indonesia. Represents about 85% of the world's cocoa production.

Later history[]

Production declined in the 1930s because of low prices, a rise in the price of foodstuffs, insecure land tenure, larceny, and a defective purchasing system. In 1932, some of the cocoa pods were not even gathered, and many trees were destroyed in the regions of Moron, Chambellan, Montagnac, and Abricots. The producers received, between 1941 and 1952, an average price only one half that of the export; the remainder went to the midlemen.

The experience of the Second World War inclined many farmers away from cocoa toward coffee. Whereas the coffee could be stored and sold after the war when transport was available, the perishable cocoa could not. In the summer of 1953, with world coffee prices soaring to new highs, the government was vigorously pushing expansion of coffee planting with distribution of seedlings from state nurseries, but it was giving little encouragement to cocoa growers. New plantings are rare, though the government has attempted to introduce Forastero cocoa to replace the old higher quality Criollo. Much of the cocoa occurs as isolated old trees in coffee groves.

Cocoa seedlings are set out under plantain shade. For the mature cocoa, shade is the same as for coffee - sucrin, véritable, mombin, and avocado. The Dominican Republic with its large and prosperous cocoa industry has madre de cocoa (Erythrina micropteryx) for shade.

Brown rot of the pods (Phytophthora paimivora) is a serious nuisance, but it is found in all cocoa regions There is no witches broom. Rats, woodpeckers and bats devour the cocoa fruits on the trees.

Undergrowth is cleared from beneath the trees with a machete before harvest. There are two harvests, a major one from September to November and a minor one from February to March. When the pods turn yellow, they are twisted or pulled rather than cut from the trees, a process which destroys some of the buds for the next season's crop. Then, they are brought to the farmer's courtyard to be cut open with a machete or broken open on a rock, after which the beans are spread out on the court to dry. In Haiti, cocoa beans are not fermented. The care of the cocoa on the farm is exclusively within the province of the men. Just as with coffee, the cocoa is purchased by weight by speculators who forward it to Jérémie for export. There, it is sorted and cleaned by women who handle up to five sacks a day, each worker, for pay of 40 cents a sack. The peasants use inferior beans unsuited for export to make local chocolate. They roast the beans, crush them in a mortar, and wrap the resulting soft paste in pieces of plantain leaf ready for sale. Domestic consumption is negligible. Fairchild reported a similar situation in the Gold Coast where the natives raise great quantities of cocoa but consume little of it.