![\"\"](\"http:\/\/www.kerstinschocolates.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/04\/Harvesting-some.cacao_.sm_.jpg\" "\\"Harvesting")
<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\nA young boy climbs a cacao tree to pick a ripe pod for us!<\/strong><\/p>\n <\/p>\n On Saturday we met a cacao farmer down here in Soconusco, Chiapas, named Don Isidro. \u00a0He took us to meet his family and have dinner with them. \u00a0The day\u00a0started by meeting him at a highway gas station. \u00a0Since we were late, he had been waiting at least an hour in the stifling heat. He was pretty \u00a0cool about it though, and invited us to come to his house and farm where he grew cacao. \u00a0First we went fishing! Don Isidro wanted to feed us fresh fish, so he took us to a talapia farm where a teenage boy dragged nets across a pond to scoop out fish. \u00a0Once we had the fish(it took over an hour to find the boy and to get the right sized fish), we drove to his farm which was located at the very end of a dirt road that led through cacao and mango trees. \u00a0 Don Isidro grows both of those as well as coffee, which he told us, is his most profitable crop.<\/p>\n He showed us his cacao, which wasn’t ready to harvest yet. \u00a0The peak harvest season in Chiapas is June where the pods turn bright yellow and are ready to be cut from the tree. \u00a0 The pods we saw were still green, although when we tasted them fresh, they were already sweet and delicious.<\/p>\n He then invited us into his house to meet his wife, Herminia and his six children. \u00a0It was hard to keep track of all the kids because four of them are girls and seemingly close in age. \u00a0Darius made an interesting observation. \u00a0He said that if you have 6 kids back home, they make a TV show about it, but here it’s quite normal. \u00a0I explained that farmers generally have more kids so they can help around the farm.<\/p>\n After a few glasses of lemonade, Don Isidro showed us where he dried the cacao. \u00a0We walked up several flights of stairs to the top floor with the best view. \u00a0He preferred to dry the beans there, away from the chickens and the dogs (for obvious reasons), but it was also a pain to bring the beans downstairs every time it rained. \u00a0He told us that his wife and daughters did most of the drying work and they also sorted through the beans picking out the bad ones. \u00a0He still had some beans from the previous harvest in September and he showed us the difference between well fermented and poorly fermented beans. \u00a0The well fermented ones had cracks in them and there was a difference in colour, too, although Cyrus and I couldn’t quite understand what that difference was. \u00a0My Spanish is pretty much non existent and Cyrus struggles with the technical terms.<\/p>\n Once we finished eating, we left fairly quickly. \u00a0Everyone was exhausted from the day, including the family who had made such pains to host us. \u00a0We were very grateful to Don Isidro and his wife, for being so generous with us and our kids. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" A young boy climbs a cacao tree to pick a ripe pod for us! On Saturday we met a cacao farmer down here in Soconusco, Chiapas, named Don Isidro. \u00a0He took us to meet his family and have … Continue reading <\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/p>\n<\/p>\nIt was getting quite dark now and the kids were bored and hungry. \u00a0Luckily dinner was ready. \u00a0 Herminia cooked us a wonderful fish dinner. \u00a0One for each of us! \u00a0They declined to join us for dinner because they had friends visiting later and wanted to eat with them. \u00a0I felt bad eating my whole fish in front of the family, but I was starving and the fish was delicious and that overrode all sense of propriety.<\/p>\n
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