Chocolate Making!

Today, we went on a chocolate making course at the Chocolate Museum in Cusco and it was so much fun. A lot of you know how much I like chocolate!

This part of the world is very famous for it's chocolate because it is one of the places on the planet where the cocao tree grows (It can grow over 15m tall in the jungle!) and this is where you get the cocao bean from. In the photo you can see me and Nadia working hard to create a paste from the cocao beans we roasted ourselves. It was hard work but the teacher decided I made the best paste in the whole group and I got a prize! I was given a whole bag of cocao bean husks which you put in boiling water to make chocolate tea, it is really nice but unfortunately I can't bring any back because it is part of a plant and you aren't allowed to take things like that into other countries.

I can't wait to try the chocolate I made later.

Did You Know?: The Mayans invented a hot chocolate drink but did not invent chocolate like most people think. Hard, edible chocolate wasn't invented until the cocao beans arrived back in Europe with the Spanish travellers that explored South America.