2. Harvesting

Fully mature and undamaged pods should be harvested as soon as they ripen. Care should be taken to minimise damage to the tree and flower cushions, and to prevent the introduction and spread of disease, by using clean, well-maintained tools.

It is important that only beans from just-ripe, healthy pods are used in the fermentation since the beans from immature, overripe or damaged/diseased pods will be of lower quality and may give rise to food safety issues. 

Immature pods (often fully or partly green, but sometimes purple or red depending on the variety) contain beans which are generally smaller and contain less cocoa butter than pods which are fully ripe (often yellow, or orange-red depending on the variety). 

Moreover, since there is little or no liquid pulp (mucilage) in unripe pods, the beans are often hard to remove and do not separate easily from each other and the placenta. Since the pulp contains lower levels of sugars, the beans do not ferment well, leading to poor flavour. 

Moreover, if beans remain stuck together in clusters, they dry more slowly and this can give rise to problems with mould development, and therefore potentially Free Fatty Acids (FFA) and Ochratoxin A (OTA) formation.

Conversely, if harvesting is done too late, the pods become over-ripe and the beans may germinate within the pod. The beans may stick together leading to the problems of poor drying and mould development, as mentioned above, and there is also the risk that damage to the seed coat (shell) during germination, or the subsequent loss of the radical during drying or storage, may allow the entry of moulds, insects and contaminants into the beans.

Damaged pods are more likely to be infected with microorganisms, regardless of whether the wound is caused by disease, insect pests or rodents whilst on the tree or inflicted by tools during harvesting and transporting the pods. It is therefore important that any wounded or damaged pods are not stored for longer than one day before opening and fermenting since they may already be infected with microorganisms which could lead to flavour deterioration, FFA and OTA formation during post-harvest processing.

The interval between harvesting and opening the pods has been found to influence fermentation. An interval of 3-4 days will result in a more rapid rise in temperature during fermentation. Such an interval should be adopted for undamaged pods wherever practical.

Storage for more than 7 days is not recommended due to the risk of proliferation of ochratoxigenic fungi. Whereas different cocoa genotypes all show the more rapid rise in fermentation temperature following pod storage, the extent of the flavour improvement differs markedly between genotypes. 

These flavour differences relate to differences in the composition and biochemistry of the cotyledons rather than to changes in pulp composition that result from post-harvest storage. Post harvest storage of unbroken pods is also impractical on large estate scale production because of the amount of extra handling involved, and in parts of Southeast Asia where the Cocoa Pod Borer (CPB) is prevalent.

Those involved in manually removing beans from pods should maintain an appropriate degree of personnel hygiene. It is preferable to open pods by striking them with a wooden mallet or baton, or a mechanical device designed to minimize damage to the beans. The use of a machete can result in damage to the shell of some of the beans thereby allowing mould and insects to enter and increase the proportion of broken beans, as well as increasing the risk of injury to the farmer/operator.

During the opening process any defective parts of the cocoa pod, mouldy beans, diseased beans, and damaged beans should be removed and appropriately disposed of. Good quality beans should be placed in a suitable container during transport.

Transport of fresh/wet beans from pod opening sites to on-farm fermentation facilities should be done under conditions that will prevent contamination e.g. spilled beans must be free of soil before being fermented.

For some varieties a pre-drying or de-pulping stage is advocated before fermentation starts to reduce acidity and/or improve the expression of desirable flavour notes.