Chocolate Balls Are In and They’re Amazing!

So excited! We just received our first batch of cacao balls from Grenada – used to make chocolate tea…a true delight, I can assure you! I discovered them during my trip last month…after a few interviews and visits to farmers’ collectives and other such places, I got the story behind the drink.

Here’s how you make a chocolate ball, as told to me by someone at a Grenadian nutmeg processing company…aka the GCNE Nutmeg Pool

How to make a chocolate roll – aka chocolate balls

As described at the Pick a cacao pod

• Take the cacao bean out of the pod
• Dry in the sun for about a week
• Put it in a big pot over a fire of coals for 15-20 minutes.
• Stir the whole time or it will burn
• Let it cool for a day or so
• Remove the shell
• Get the bean
• Grind it in a hand grinder with spices: nutmeg, bay leaf, clove, cinnamon

The spices and the natural fat in the cacao held the balls together.

How to make chocolate tea

Once you actually get the chocolate balls, making the tea is easy: just dissolve the balls in boiling water, strain, and add milk and sugar to taste.

For more about the traditional use of the cacao balls, check out this interview I did with Alvin Heinz and posted a few weeks ago.