Day three of my trip to the dominican began with a gentle wake up around the same time {sevenish}, a quick breakfast, and then we all loaded into a minivan {with the exception of Kristen, who rode in Pastor Tanis' truck} and headed to Conocado, a fair trade cocoa plant. We spent several hours here, learning about the process that a cocoa plant goes through--from the blossom, to the plant, then is peeled, dried, roasted, and processed until it become a very bitter piece of dark chocolate. Then sugar can be added to it, to make it sweet, it can be squeezed and fermented, made into wine or marmalade, or shipped out, where it can become chocolate that we eat in almost all of our deserts. We spent a lot of time with the people who work here. We met with a farmer, who said that he was born and raised under the trees, and worked there his entire life. He said he sacrificed a lot so that his family didn't have to. He praised God that he was able to do this. He had a truly incredible story.
We also were able to talk with a few women about the process of turning the cocoa into wine, marmalade, hot chocolate, and just plain chocolate.
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| College Bound Wine Tasting {just kidding, don't fire me.} |
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| Making the wine |
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| I ground those beans. |
We were able to see the beans being dried and roasted.
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| After they went through the guillotine |
And we ate TONS of fresh fruit.
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| There was some confusion about how to eat the sugar cane... |
And that was only half of monday. After returning from conacado, we spent a few hours at the ocean. I promise to post about that tomorrow!
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