Cocoa fruit
Cocoa fruits come in different shapes and colours. They are round, oval, melon-shaped, smooth or ribbed and weigh up to 1.5 kg. When ripe, they can have different colours: orange, green, purple or red. One fruit contains up to 50 cocoa seeds, which are surrounded by a whitish, juicy flesh (the fruit pulp).
The seed tastes bitter and astringent when fresh. The pulp, on the other hand, is pleasantly sour-sweet and has the consistency of a banana-cherry mixture. Cocoa fruits grow from the flowers in 5-6 months. Ripe fruits are cut off with a machete or a hook-shaped knife for harvesting, as they do not fall from the tree by themselves.
