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| title | chunk | source | category | tags | date_saved | instance |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Cocoa bean fermentation | 3/3 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cocoa_bean_fermentation | reference | science, encyclopedia | 2026-05-05T14:15:07.650805+00:00 | kb-cron |
Cocoa growers sell beans 'wet' and 'dry'. When selling beans wet, farmers remove beans from pods and almost immediately sell them to a buyer. That buyer collects beans from multiple farms, and takes them to a central location, called a fermentary, where they are fermented and dried. This practice is common to some parts of the Asia Pacific, Central and South America, and the Caribbean. Farmers who sell beans dry have processed the beans by drying them on site. In West Africa, they ferment the beans first, while in countries such as Indonesia and Uganda, beans undergo minimal fermentation. Due to the limited to non-existent fermentation in Indonesia, beans are sold cheaply as they need to be combined with fermented beans to produce chocolate. While farmers get higher prices for dry beans than wet, to be able to ferment and dry beans, they need skills, equipment, and reliable weather conditions. Cocoa fermentation as of 2018 was actively researched, with the goal of standardizing and optimizing processing. Such research is focused on biochemical rather than social phenomena. The research generally advocates for industrial fermentation rather than the practices used by smallholders. In Cocoa, Kristy Leissle characterizes this advocacy as unrealistic. In Ghana and India, there is a gendered division of labor in cocoa farming processes, with women performing more post-harvest work, including fermentation. Single-origin craft chocolate makers in the US have a strong preference for cocoa that has been centrally processed so that variability in product is minimized. As a result of this, growers performing on-farm fermentation have fewer opportunities for selling to the craft chocolate markets.
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