Peru is a country situated in South America. This country is bordered by several countries and an ocean. This country is bordered by Ecuador and Colombia to the north, Bolivia is at the southeast side of the country while Brazil is at the east. At the west, Peru is bordered by the Pacific Ocean and Chile is at the south. Geographically, Peru has arid plains which are at the coast of the Pacific Ocean, tropical forests of the Amazon and the Andes Mountains. The main economic activities in the South American country are fishing, mining and agriculture. Textiles manufacturing is done too.
The rainforest in Peru is rich in fauna and flora. The animals and plants found here are unique. This is a major attraction in this South American country especially the Amazon Basin and Manu. Manu has three main zones. There is the national park, the reserved zone and cultural zone. These places have unique flowers, plants, birds, mammals, fish and insects you can ever come across.
The rainforest is not the only thing that has put Peru into the limelight. In 2007, nacional cacao, a thought-to-be-extinct cacao tree was discovered in Peru. This tree is used to produce chocolate. This tree is very popular due to the quality of chocolate it produces. Nacional cacao produces chocolate which has a striking floral aroma. It has great richness in taste hence of very high quality. Normal cacao beans are purple in color but beans from nacional cacao are mostly white. The cacao beans from this tree produce less acidic chocolates. This is so as they have fewer anthocyanins as compared to other cacao trees. Roasted beans of this tree can be bought with their own chocolate covering them.
Cacao beans are the most useful products of a cacao tree. These beans are used in the manufacture of chocolate. These beans are usually found in a cacao pod. The pod has a viscous pulp that is sweet and white in color. The cacao beans are embedded in this pulp.
The cacao beans are taken to a factory where they are dried and fermented. After fermentation, they are roasted to produce chocolate. These are then packaged and sent to other towns for sale. Roasted cacao beans are usually brown in color. This is the same case with roasted white cacao beans. They turn brown hence most people forget the fact that they were purely white.
Cacao beans from nacional cacao produce the most expensive chocolate. This is so as pure white cacao beans are of the best quality hence, most expensive. To reduce the price, the pure white cacao beans could be blended with purple cacao beans.
In conclusion, Peru farmers should ensure that nacional cacao is preserved and more such trees are planted in order to be the leading country producing the best chocolate in the world. The forests should not be subjected to deforestation as letting ecology takes its own natural path might lead to the discovery of other important trees and plants.
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