Making Chocolate ~ First Failed Attempt

A couple of weeks ago I was at the farmers market and there were organic cacao beans...you know...what CHOCOLATE is made from!!!

I've been told that Hawaii is the only state in the US that can grow cacao beans, AND that the only places in the world that it can grow is 20 degrees above or below the equator...were at 19something degrees above the equator.

The kind market farmer told me that I could start my own cacao tree from the seeds if I dry them, then sprout them. I thought that was pretty cool, but I was mostly interested in making my very own chocolate. Hastily I did a quick google on how to make chocolate. I did not research very long or thoroughly...my bad.

What I found told me that to make chocolate you first need to ferment the beans. It said that traditionally this is done in the field and that the beans are put in a pile and covered with banana leaves. I thought cool I have banana leaves, I'll do that. I didn't want them to be left on the ground...lest some unwanted snail or slug crawl over them and leave me with unwanted rat lungworm nematodes!!!

(Stella and our banana leaf)

So I decided to wrap them up in a banana leaf and set them outside under our black composter lid.

This was not a good idea! It rained all week and I'm sure the beans in the banana leaf did not reach the required 125F needed to ferment. When I checked on them at the end of the week they were beyond gross...too gross to take a picture of them. Maybe I was supposed to use brown dead banana leaves??? They were all covered with gray/black fuzzy mold. I tried to salvage them and rinsed them under hot water and even tried to dehydrate them in the oven for a couple of days, but the mold caked on so that I was thoroughly disgusted and pitched them in the compost.
I will try again. I will not give up. I was so excited in the beginning and took my "step by step" pictures that I decided to post them and my failed attempt.