Cocoa beans

The cocoa bean, also cacao bean or simply cocoa or cacao, is the dried and fully fermented fatty seed of Theobroma cacao, from which cocoa solids and cocoa butter are extracted. They are the basis of chocolate and many Mesoamerican foods such as mole sauce.

A cocoa pod (fruit) has a rough and leathery rind about 2 cm (0.79 in) to 3 cm (1.2 in) thick (this varies with the origin and variety of pods). It is filled with sweet, mucilaginous pulp with lemonade-like taste enclosing 30 to 50 large seeds that are fairly soft and pale lavender to dark brownish-purple color. Due to heat build-up in the fermentation process, cacao beans lose most of the purplish hue and become mostly brown in color, with an adhered skin that includes the fruity pulp’s dried remains. This skin is released easily after roasting by winnowing. White seeds are found in some rare varieties, usually mixed with purples, and are considered of higher value.