On a lush farm in Gangannagudem, scented with nutmeg flowers and rustling with monkeys, Chaitanya Muppala listens for the song of the cacao trees.
“This is what chocolate making is about,” he says, as he plucks a ripe yellow cacao pod, knocking it firmly against a tree trunk to break it open and scoop out the beans, cradled in creamy pulp. He thoughtfully pops a few in his mouth, concentrating on their sweet, delicate flavour, then adds, “How do I take this fruit, and make it sing that song?”
Although India has been growing cacao for six decades, it is yet to be recognised as a source of fine flavour cacao. (This is cacao that is optimised for flavour and complexity as opposed to bulk cacao, which is optimised for yield and disease resistance.) With rudimentary fermentation and drying methods on farms, the delicate pod fails to live up to its full potential, which does not really matter to commercial chocolate makers, since they focus on sweetness and standardisation.
