When I was in high school 3 scores and 7 years ago, literally,
a few cacao trees grew between the houses of the Hilarios and Garcias, who
owned those cacaos. Grandma Apong Marin would often open some ripe pods for us
children to bite into the wonderful white pulp covering each seed. Apong would later
collect the seeds to dry & later on prepare her tablea, a tablet made of roasted and ground cacao seeds for making delicious
chocolate. I don't remember tasting her hot chocolate, but I always thanked her
for the seed treat. It was always a delight.
Now, where does that delectable taste of the cacao seed pulp
come from? I say: From the seeds. Differently, The Chocolate Journalist, whose link to Facebook is shared by Indai
Le Cortes (image above), says in the very title of her piece: "The Larger
The Variety Of Shade Trees, The Better The Journey Of Flavors In The
Chocolate." She is saying the particular chocolate flavor comes from the
diversity of trees with which the cacao tree has grown. She says, "The shade
trees next and above the cocoa trees not only provide shelter and protection,
but they bring their own flavors to the table. The cacao tree will take those
flavors up and express them in the chocolate."
As a graduate of Agriculture, science writer and an editor
in Agriculture and Forestry in the last 53 years, and as a wide reader, I
believe this: It's the soil, along with
the climate, that gives that particular chocolatey taste. Yes, the tree
takes those flavors up from the soil –
it's the food the roots take from the soil that becomes the food you taste from
your cup of chocolate.
And yes, as Filipina science writer Faustina C Baradas says,
"The Philippines' strategic location and favorable soil and climatic
conditions make the country the best option for planting cacao" (19 July
2016, "Increasing Cacao Production To Boost The Chocolate Industry," DOST-PCAARRD, pcaarrd.dost.gov.ph).
We Filipinos are living in the best
country to produce chocolate! Ahem. Commercially strategic because of geography; favorable
soil because of volcanic origins; and favorable
climatic conditions because we are in the tropics.
Here's a botanical explanation, from an American plant
expert in the last century in charge of Seed & Plant Introduction in the Philippine
Bureau of Agriculture, William S Lyon, who says in his farmer's bulletin
published in 1902 titled Cacao Culture In
The Philippines:
Cacao loves to "steam
and swelter in its own atmosphere" and high winds are inimical, and even
refreshing breezes are incompatible.
Taken together, those 21 words means only this:
To grow best, cacao needs many trees to grow along
with.
In another sense, by their shadows, the shade trees bring loveliness.
Japanese writer Junichiro Tanizaki says, "Were it not for shadows, there
would be no beauty." And beauty? American poet Ralph Waldo Emerson says,
"Beauty is its own excuse for being"!
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