I'm ready!
Posted on 10/11/2009 8:30:00 PM PDT by blam
Cocoa Prices At Highest For Two Decades
Cocoa prices have been quietly but steadily rising in London, this week reaching their highest point in the last two decades.
Published: 7:40PM BST 11 Oct 2009
[snip]
(Excerpt) Read more at telegraph.co.uk ...
Maybe rising commodity prices will put an end to the whole “fair traded” scam.
I am so glad I’ve bought extra....
Does Goldman Sachs play with cocoa futures?
Me too... and, coffee.
I'm ready!
Chocolate bars, gold bars and lead bars...what a combination.
A girl’s gotta do what a girl’s gotta do these days. :)
Unless it's in the freezer, I've noticed that both roasted coffee beans and ground coffee become very acidic - within the first year of storage. It's still drinkable, sure, but the can of coffee I opened up after an experimental 2-year storage in the basement was very "sour," bitter, acidic, whatever you'd like to call it.
I've read in a book about foods in early USA, that many pioneers refused to drink tea, as a matter of patriotic principle, instead each morning roasting GREEN COFFEE BEANS in a skillet over the fire, then grinding them up and making a pot of coffee.
In one of the recent FR threads about caffeine, someone mentioned that unroasted coffee beans are MUCH less expensive than their roasted counterpart, particularly if you buy in bulk -- but I have NO idea how long the unroasted green coffee beans last, storagewise.
I've read that UNOPENED plain old fashioned Hershey's cocoa from the baking aisle will last indefinitely, just like honey, cornstarch & lard - they don't go bad.
Might not cocoa prices be very high simply because SO many people are buying chocolate sweets, there was a big upsurge in candy sales after the financial collapse a year ago?
I wonder why can’t we grow it in this country. I realize it’s tropical, but Florida, Hawaii? Why not?
Gotta get to the store and stock up on Dove Dark.
I don't know. I thought the same about cocaine plants.
Not the same plant if that’s what you’re getting at.
Yup, I know.
There's a growing market in the US for Khat amoung immigrants. Maybe someone will start growing that here like marijuana.
"The growing conditions required by the cocoa tree are fairly precise and the areas of cultivation lie within 20o latitude of the equator.
The temperature in cocoa growing areas is usually between 30C and 32C. The minimum allowable is 18C.
Rainfall levels of 1,150 to 3,000mm are required.
Soil conditions can vary considerably but a firm roothold and moisture retention are necessary.
It is traditional for cocoa to be grown under shade trees although such conditions resemble those in its natural habitat it has been shown that higher yields can be obtained without shade if sufficient moisture and nutrients are made available.
Propagation by seed is the most economical way of increasing stock but vegetative methods can also be used and these provide a more consistent and reliable method of reproducing trees of particular strains.
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