Eden
Starfruit sliced fresh off the tree.
Cacao pods
White-rumped shama
Fireworks
Baby pineapple a-growing.The Mother is tireless in her enthusiasm for seeing all that grows on Kauai. We have seen bromeliads and staghorn ferns, jurassic palms, ficas with roots taller than a man, cycads, vanilla bean orchids (truly where vanilla comes from), coffee and cacao plantations, starfruit, pineapple, banyans and monkeypods, eggfruit, lilikoi, black bamboo, chinese red bamboo... the list is endless.
Yesterday we visited a cacao farm. (And CB, Mistress of Cacao, this goes out to you.)
Cacao trees grow 20 degrees above and below the equator. They need a constant temperature of at least 60 degrees. They need shade, and they can't tolerate wind. Their flowers are so tiny that they can only be pollinated by gnats and midges, so you have to fertilize them with rotting fruit. The pods grow low to the ground, because to proliferate, they rely on animals to eat them and pass their seeds. A ripe cacao pod contains 30-50 seeds (beans). When they're ripe, you have to extract the beans, let them ferment for about a week, then dry them in the sun. Then you roast them like coffee beans, and voila, a ready-to-eat, pungent, bitter, but unmistakably cocoa-ey snack. (I think perhaps an acquired taste..) The Mayans and other clever folks used to eat them or mash 'em up and drink them daily, for their powerful medicinal qualities! Now, get this: to make chocolate, all you have to do is grind the beans in a super-powerful grinder for about 3 days non-stop. (Don't have to add anything at all.) You'll get 100% pure liquid chocolate. If you want it to be palatable, though, you should throw some other stuff into the grinder, like a ton of sugar. We tried 10 different chocolates made with just cacao, sugar, and vanilla. They were all so different - I was amazed. It was like a wine tasting. So many factors influencing the flavour. The soil and climate where the beans are grown, the bacteria present in the air when the beans ferment, the roasting time, the kind of grinder used, the length of grinding time, the cooling process, and the tempering process, the mood of the roaster, the angle of the sun, the alignment of mercury and saturn, etc. etc. Fascinating.
And now, a quick list of 10 things I've loved from the last couple days:
1. Slamming back cold beers with Ma on the patio. (That's right, Pa. Cold beers.)
2. The tree tunnel near our place - a long, dense corridor of towering Eucalyptus trees.
3. Mouth-watering rambutan!
4. Watching people line up along the beach and the sea-walls to wait for the sunset... a silent audience paying homage to the sun.
5. Listening to the palms rustling in the night, a sound strikingly similar to gentle rainfall.
6. Geckos on the walls. Little tiny ones, protecting us from any threat of cockroaches or mosquitos.
7. Hearing a new birdsong every morning.
8. Finding sand in my bellybutton.
9. The tiny little lime-green bird with the white-rimmed eyes who stands upside-down on the palm leaves beside our balcony.
10. Knowing I still have over a month left.
..
Cacao trees grow 20 degrees above and below the equator. They need a constant temperature of at least 60 degrees. They need shade, and they can't tolerate wind. Their flowers are so tiny that they can only be pollinated by gnats and midges, so you have to fertilize them with rotting fruit. The pods grow low to the ground, because to proliferate, they rely on animals to eat them and pass their seeds. A ripe cacao pod contains 30-50 seeds (beans). When they're ripe, you have to extract the beans, let them ferment for about a week, then dry them in the sun. Then you roast them like coffee beans, and voila, a ready-to-eat, pungent, bitter, but unmistakably cocoa-ey snack. (I think perhaps an acquired taste..) The Mayans and other clever folks used to eat them or mash 'em up and drink them daily, for their powerful medicinal qualities! Now, get this: to make chocolate, all you have to do is grind the beans in a super-powerful grinder for about 3 days non-stop. (Don't have to add anything at all.) You'll get 100% pure liquid chocolate. If you want it to be palatable, though, you should throw some other stuff into the grinder, like a ton of sugar. We tried 10 different chocolates made with just cacao, sugar, and vanilla. They were all so different - I was amazed. It was like a wine tasting. So many factors influencing the flavour. The soil and climate where the beans are grown, the bacteria present in the air when the beans ferment, the roasting time, the kind of grinder used, the length of grinding time, the cooling process, and the tempering process, the mood of the roaster, the angle of the sun, the alignment of mercury and saturn, etc. etc. Fascinating.
And now, a quick list of 10 things I've loved from the last couple days:
1. Slamming back cold beers with Ma on the patio. (That's right, Pa. Cold beers.)
2. The tree tunnel near our place - a long, dense corridor of towering Eucalyptus trees.
3. Mouth-watering rambutan!
4. Watching people line up along the beach and the sea-walls to wait for the sunset... a silent audience paying homage to the sun.
5. Listening to the palms rustling in the night, a sound strikingly similar to gentle rainfall.
6. Geckos on the walls. Little tiny ones, protecting us from any threat of cockroaches or mosquitos.
7. Hearing a new birdsong every morning.
8. Finding sand in my bellybutton.
9. The tiny little lime-green bird with the white-rimmed eyes who stands upside-down on the palm leaves beside our balcony.
10. Knowing I still have over a month left.
..
mmmmm....Cacao! I want to visit even if just to experience that! So amazing, all these images and moments... yep, I wanna go there :)
ReplyDelete