ELI5: Explain Like I'm 5

Cocoa production in Ivory Coast

Okay, kiddo, let's learn about cocoa production in Ivory Coast!

You know how we love chocolate, right? Well, cocoa is the special ingredient that makes chocolate so yummy. And Ivory Coast is a country in Africa that makes a lot of cocoa.

So, what is cocoa? Cocoa is a bean that grows on a tree called the cocoa tree. The cocoa tree needs lots of sunshine and rain to grow properly. And in Ivory Coast, there are lots and lots of cocoa trees growing all over the place.

Once the cocoa beans are ready, people go and pick them off the trees. They use special tools like knives and machetes to cut the beans off the branches. Then, they put the beans in big baskets and take them to a special place where they will be turned into chocolate.

But before the beans become chocolate, they need to go through a process called fermentation. This means the beans sit in big piles for a few days and begin to change. They get hot and start to make a kind of juice. This juice helps the beans develop the flavors that make chocolate taste so yummy.

After the fermentation process, the beans are ready to be dried. They are spread out on big mats and left in the sun for a few days. When they are nice and dry, they are packed into bags and shipped off to factories where they will be turned into chocolate.

All in all, cocoa production in Ivory Coast is a big deal. It helps provide lots of jobs for people who work on the cocoa farms and the factories. And without cocoa, we wouldn't have chocolate, which would be a major bummer!