Rising temperatures and shifting rainfall patterns in West Africa, which supplies around 70% of the world's cacao, are ...

Any chocolate lover can probably tell you that cacao is the most important ingredient in any chocolate confection. But not ...

As you nibble on a chocolate truffle or bite into a chocolate-dipped strawberry on Valentine’s Day, consider the elongated, ribbed pods of the cacao tree, which made that sweet treat possible.

The fruit of the cocoa tree is a pod full of sweet pulp enfolding a cluster of about 20 to 40 cocoa seeds. Cocoa takes about two and a half years to mature and gives two harvests in a year.

The seeds, by contrast, are exceedingly bitter. It takes time and skill to turn them into chocolate. The flesh that surrounds cacao beans is delicious straight from the pod, but it takes talent to ...