How to grow a cacao tree at home (2024)
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Cacao trees are the most difficult plant I have grown, they are much more finicky than many others, and I almost only grow tropical or subtropical plants (in a temperate climate, in France and now Belgium).
I don't know which climate this gentleman lives in, but winter in France has been fatal to several of my trees simply because of the reduced ambient humidity due to needing heating in the house. None have survived more than three years.
I love chocolate.
But man some some times I wonder how desperately hungry were the people who made something edible out of the cocoa tree.
I wouldn't have assumed they were desperately hungry. Maybe they were bored of eating the same thing every day and looking for some novelty.
Matter of taste.
I like eating cocoa beans.
Oddly, I cannot stand the smell of coffee.
Well, the fruit is a lovely flavor. Once you learn that e.g. pomelo peel has a way to cook and be eaten, you realize the resourcefulness of our forebears and their quest for flavor and a full belly
Cacao are OK to suck on (to get the pulp around the seeds), but the seeds themselves taste utterly vile.
Just for the record, Spain produces Cacao since 2022, with the first 70 Kg of fully European Cacao on 2023. Courtesy of some cunning and patient sapiens. And it only toke 100 years of work.
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I've never managed to get them taller than 10 inches. And this last year, no leaves at all... the tap root would emerge, but something always kills it quickly. Though, to be fair, those were from a grocery store pod (I think they refrigerate them during transport).
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