Theobroma cacao: from Bud to Bean
Sam describes some methods of cocoa cultivation, harvesting, fermentation, and drying.

(Image: cocoa beans fermenting on the forest floor, under a cover of banana leaves)

Chemical Cocoa
Contrary to popular belief, cocoa is usually grown using toxic agricultural pesticides.

(Image: the chemical structure of lindane, a persistent, bio-accumulating organochlorine insecticide still commonly used in the cocoa industry, even though it is banned in the US and EU)

Ethical Capitalism in Action
Lang & Sam meet some cocoa growers in a remote part of Vanuatu.

(Image: the village Chief gives our plan to buy cocoa at a fair price the thumbs-up)

Meet the Mallows
Contrary to popular belief, cocoa isn’t related to coffee, coconut, coca, or carob.

(Image: Cocoa belongs to the mallow family, as does the balsa wood tree, Ochroma pyramidale)

Home-Grown Cocoa?
Three reasons not to grow cocoa commercially in Australia.

(Image: cocoa is at home in the wet tropics; Australia is the driest inhabited continent on earth)

The Misery of Malaria
Sam becomes one of 500 million people to catch malaria in 2005.

(Image: a course of twelve chloroquine tablets to treat malaria costs AUD$2.93 – too expensive for most malaria sufferers)

The University of Chocolate, 2005 – a review
Sam has serious concerns about the value of the course, and what she saw in Ecudaor.

(Image: Pierrick Chouard, the man behind the University of Chocolate, talks about cocoa in the field)