Day 5: La Fortuna: cocoa farm

After breakfast we headed over to the Two Little Monkeys chocolate farm. Couple of the photos show the Arenal volcano when the background. Apparently chocolate was first discovered and made in the meso Maya/Costa Rica area. Cocoa beans are fermented for seven days, then dried out, before being mixed with sugar make dark chocolate or with sugar and milk to make milk chocolate. Kids were able to grind some prepared cocoa beans into a paste that was then mixed with sugar and various ingredients to make hot chocolate. We learned that the Swiss were the first people to add milk to chocolate. Also I learned that humans are the only creature on earth that can eat chocolate. Monkeys will crack open the cocoa pods and eat the cocoa butter surrounding the beans but they spit the beans out afterward.Read more