Although it is really hard to find someone who doesn’t like chocolates, there are certain facts about it which are surprisingly unknown to many of us:
• It takes 400 cocoa beans to make one pound of chocolate. So, it comes from a fruit tree and is made from a seed.
• Cacao leaves can move 90 degrees, from horizontal to vertical, to get sun and to protect younger leaves.
• The average serving of milk chocolate has about the same amount of caffeine as a cup of decaf coffee.
• Cacao trees can live to be 200 years old.
• Because cacao trees are so delicate, farmers lose, on average, 30 percent of their crop each year.
• Cote d’Ivoire is the single largest producer of cocoa, providing roughly 40 percent of the world’s supply.
• Cocoa and Cacao are the same thing. The words are interchangeable! It’s all one bean.
• Chocolate is the only edible substance to melt around 93° F, just below the human body temperature. That’s why chocolate melts so easily on your tongue.
