THE NEW COCOA BEAN! FROM AUSTRALIA?

The great thing about chocolate is the adventure you can taste. As it melts in your mouth the mysteries of Madagascar, Java, Ivory Coast, Ecuador, Venezuela fill the recesses of your mind. What pictures you see, what sensations you experience and what thrills stimulate you. It is not the taste of chocolate that makes us addicted to it, it is the journey it takes on. During the personal chocolate experience we get high with a touch of the Indiana Jones or Laura Croft fever.

It will be exciting indeed one day if we can venture through a chocolate vision into the monsoon jungles of Cape York, Australia or hack our way through the northern edges of Australia"s Northern Territory.Australia is a perfect place for a new cocoa bean to emerge from. In fact not far from Port Douglas, near Mossman, are the first ever cocoa plantations of Australia. These plantations are on the edge of the Daintree Rainforests.

Daintree Rainforests should not be spoken in the same breath as other rainforests. Daintree is the oldest in the world. It celebrated its 135 millionth birthday recently. It was forged out of volcanic explosions, fires, cyclones, climatic changes and everything Nature could think of.

Daintree is about 1200 square miles. Size of 5 Singapores. Cape York is just a little smaller than Sulawesi(the largest cocoa region in Indonesia with about 400,000 small farms). At one time historians say, there was probably a land-bridge between Sulawesi and Australia.Which probably explains why Sulawesi and Maluku(lots of good beans here too) share some the flora and fauna with Australia. The Wallace Line runs through Maluku.

This is a perfect place for a new breed of bean to emerge from.The country has from Cape York in the north-eastern edge. westwards along the tip of the continent's northern coast the hot and humid conditions that cocoa trees thrive on.Tropical cyclones and monsoons bring rain to this region. The soil is ancient and mystical--ask any of the Aboriginal people that live there. The area bristles with excitement.

Daintree is home of the viscous Cassowaries and the tree kangaroo. There are also many patiently waiting crocodiles. It was close here that Captain Cook"s Endeavour struck a coral reef. So he called the place Cape Tribulation.

Cape York, is on the same latitude as Madagascar where some intriguing beans come from. It is also within the belt of the primary cocoa growing regions of the world.

Cape York is a World Heritage site. So is the great Barrier Reef across the road, as it were. Coco plantations can help create forests and propagate them. It can grow with harmony with the fruits already being cultivated in the area. It will not encroach into ecological balance of that environment.

Down south are the incredible resources that Australia has that perhaps no other cocoa rich country possess. First its severely applied laws make it very unlikely that flora or fauna diseases can sneak into the country. Second the country has extremely innovative scientific and intellectual resources to support the science of cocoa breeding. Thirdly it has the food technologists and world class culinary stars that can surely take chocolate to great new heights, especially when they are inspired by their own beans. Already Australian chocolate artisans like Cocoa Farm are inventing some delightfully new cocoa experiences.

Fourth, Australia will have no problems with issues like Fair Trade or Child Labour.You can buy beans here without feeling any guilt. Lastly, and I think it is important, Kevin Rudd is Prime Minister. The man undoubtedly has courage, vision, the intellect and is innovative.A man with a face, where a chocolate smear will not be out of place. It is bound to trickle down, or up, to chocolate and cocoa. I am sure he will be around through many, many yields of cocoa pods.

Perhaps what Australia lacks currently is the expertise to process the bean to chocolate ingredients. We have that long experience and expertise, which are indeed excellent, in Indonesia.What are neighbours for?

Frankly there's only one thing about Australia that bothers me. In spite of their atrocious accent they are actually a very civilised people. The problem is that they may civilise the cocoa bean. One must not forget the beans comes the depths of jungles. The bean part of the Olmec, Aztec and Mayan civilisations. The bean was Cortes' passion(when it was money). The bean it is said was at the root of Casanovas and Don Juan's wicked philandering, the bean was nearly the victim of the Inquisition.

It is a history of blood, sweat and tears. It's roots are savage, sensuous, dark and brooding. It needs to be sought after and conquered.

The Australians may civilise the bean. Have landscaped plantations, with little plagues with neat descriptions, a quaint little factory at the end and a cafe where you can sample and buy chocolates made from the cocoa grown on plantation, enjoy buttered scones and great wine even. It would be wrong! It would rob the mystic and of the bean mysterious depths and subsequently the flavour and the luscious romance of the chocolate.

One way out would be to totally handover the cocoa project in Cape Youk to the Kuku Yalariji Aboriginal tribal. They have lived in the these rainforests for over 10,000 years. They lived with what the forests provided. I am sure they would be delighted to give the forests a return gift of chocolate without disturbing the spirits that dwell therein.

If cocoa beans take their characteristics from the soil, climate and environment what would Cape York(Or Daintree beans) taste like? It makes the hair at the back of my neck to bristle. For it must be awesome.

COCOA FROM PAPUA, INDONESIA.

From a satellite map it is green, criss-crossed by numerous rivers and streams, with a mountainous backbone with some of peaks tipped with glaciers.It reminds you of Venezuela.

The river Mamberama which winds through the territory is sometimes called the Amazon of Papua.With an area of 421,981 square kilometers it has a density of 6.6 persons per kilometer, 16000 plant species and fauna which include marsupiels like possums, wallabies and tree kangaroos.

It makes news regularly because the gold and copper mining company, Freeport is located in the highlands.

Most of the cocoa plantations are on the eastern side of the territory on soils that are immensely fertile. The climate is ideally suited for quality cocoa shaded by natural jungle. According to one estimate there are some 5,900ha of small holder cocoa plantations. But the same estimate says there is potential for 305,855ha for cocoa.

Coffee, aribica, is the other cash crop that is thanks to people like Starbucks is destined, primarily because of it remoteness, to be much desired. Both the cocoa beans and coffee are flown out to traders or buyers.

Next door in Papua New Guinea, cocoa is witnessing a revival. !00,000 tons are produced by over 6,000 Small holder cocoa families. Much of this cocoa is exported to USA, Singapore, Malaysia and even to Indonesia. Germany and the UK import about 5% of cocoa from Papua New Guinea.

I have not been able to get any reliable evaluation of Papua, Indonesia cocoa beans. But I hear that international, adventurous, chocolatiers have been snooping.More information in future Blogs.