NPR: In Peru, A Hunt For Chocolate Like You've Never Tasted It

[ellisonz]

In Peru, A Hunt For Chocolate Like You've Never Tasted It
09:36 am
October 10, 2011



Farmers dry cacao beans in Uchiza, Peru, a file photo from 2008. Researchers are exploring the wild cacao bounty of Peru's Amazon Basin, part of an effort to jump-start the country's premium cacao industry.
Martin Mejia/AP

by Maria Godoy

Christopher Columbus first encountered the cacao bean on his final voyage to the New World some 500 years ago. It took a while for Europeans to embrace the taste — one 16th-century Spanish missionary called the chocolate that indigenous people drank "loathsome."

But by the 17th century, chocolate met sugar, and it became a hit the world over — it's now a $93 billion a year global industry, according to market research firm Mintel.

Centuries and countless foil-wrapped bars later, it turns out we've barely begun to sample the many flavors that nature has to offer to satisfy our chocolate cravings. Scientists from the USDA's Agricultural Research Service recently reported discovering three previously unknown varieties of wild cacao in the Amazon rainforest of Peru.

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Like wine, cacao flavor is influenced by the region where it's grown. The researchers want to catalog Peru's "cacao varietals," analyze their DNA and identify the so-called flavor beans that premium chocolate makers covet. It's all part of an effort to help jump-start Peru's premium chocolate industry (and lure former coca farmers to cacao.)

http://www.npr.org/blogs/thesalt/2011/10/10/141153396/in-peru-a-hunt-for-chocolate-like-youve-never-tasted-it?sc=fb&cc=fp

[AsahinaKimi]

1. Drools....

Just think...if Chocolate met salt instead of sugar, what a different world it would be....

[Aerows]

2. Second the drooling

Chocolate ... yummy *sigh*.

[pinboy3niner]

3. The OP is well-timed...

...as I sit here enjoying some chocolate-covered espresso beans. :)

[malaise]

4. That must be delish

Damn

[pinboy3niner]

7. Here, they're $1.99 at Walgreen's for 4.75 oz.

But watch out--they are habit-forming! :hi:

[AsahinaKimi]

8. The only thing that might be better is ..

Dark Chocolate and Caramel!


I just gained 10lbs just looking at that photo.

[mdmc]

5. r

[joeybee12]

6. Chocolate is proof there is a God!

Of course, Republicans are proof there isn't, so it's a wash.

[ellisonz]

9. It's Evolutionary!

;)