Cocoa Project

I went on a trip to Kailahun last week. It's in the far Eastern corner of Sierra Leoen, sandwiched between Liberia and Guinea. I was there doing some pilotting for a potential Cocoa project. We want to increase the incentive for cocoa traders to trade in high quality cocoa. It's still early days for the project though. On this trip, my main mission was to find out how to grade cocoa beans. The beans taste pretty good when they're fermented and dried properly. Like really really dark, slightly fruity chocolate.

Here are two cocoa pods that a guy called Adu-Jina in one of the villages gave to me.

The cocoa pod on the left is called "Ghana" cocoa. Also known as amazonian cocoa I think. The smaller one on the right is local Sierra Leonean cocoa. The Ghana cocoa pods produce more cocoa, and run all year round. The local cocoa is smaller, seasonal, but they say that it's more pungent.

I slept in a small town called Segbwema. Two of the cocoa traders we might work with are based there. There's a bombed out Guinean tank there by the central street junction. Kailahun was the rebel hot spot during the war. There's a great coffee shop next to the tank run by "Number 1." He sells nescafe, ataya tea and local Sierra Leonean coffee. All black and strong.

Some coffee on the tank with Fatoma.

I like that the guys hang their laundry out to dry on the tank. There's also a "For Sale" notice painted on one of its sides.