(upbeat music) - Today everyone,
I have a very rare
and very special opportunity to try three different species
of Theobroma side by side.
Theobroma cacao is popular worldwide and rightfully so.
The seeds of this fruit are processed to make chocolate.
However, it also has an edible fruit that tastes good
if you can find it.
Next up we have Theobroma bicolor,
a fruit that is sometimes found
in Central and South America.
The seeds of this fruit are consumed roasted
and can be processed to make something that is almost
but not quite entirely unlike chocolate.
The fruit of Theobroma bicolor is just as popular
as the seeds that are inside it.
It can be eaten out of hand or used to make juice.
And finally we have Theobroma grandiflorum,
a fruit that is most commonly found in the Amazon.
Its seeds are sometimes eaten roasted,
and they can be made into chocolate,
but that's kind of rare.
The main way that people use this fruit is to make a juice
and that juice is very popular in the areas that it grows.
Even though these three fruits are related to each other,
they are very different.
I've been lucky enough to have reviewed these
on my channel in the past, separately,
but today in this very special episode
I will compare them side by side
and show you just how unique these three fruits really are.
This episode is brought to you by Squarespace.
Head over to squarespace.com
and sign up for a free trial today.
(upbeat jazzy music)
Today I have a wonderful
and rare opportunity to talk
about three different Theobroma species.
In order to make chocolate,
the seeds of the Theobroma cacao are taken out.
They are fermented, they're dried, they're roasted,
they're ground, they're mixed with things,
there's a whole big process to make chocolate with the seeds
of this, but those seeds are surrounded by fruit
and that fruit is edible.
Typically it's thrown away, but you can actually eat it.
So to cut this open might be kind of tricky.
It's easiest to smash it against something.
So I'm gonna see if I can open it with a knife
and if I can't, take it outside.
It's kind of like opening up a watermelon,
it's got that sort of rind to it.
And if you've been watching my channel for a while
you may remember that I did an episode
where I actually ate the pod.
People can eat the pod and have eaten the pod,
however, the pod does not taste good, not at all.
But there's been a little bit of effort
to try to reduce the waste of the pod.
So it's been done, (chuckles) doesn't taste good.
(pod cracking)
(knife clattering)
(pod thumps)
There, got it.
Although this one has so much popularity
there are actually over 20 species of Theobroma.
And the ones that are most common out of those ones
that are actually used a lot by some communities
around the world are basically these two.
This here is Theobroma grandiflorum.
The common name for it is cupuacu.
And in the Amazon, the cupuacu is used to make a drink.
They take the flesh of this,
they mix it with either water or milk and some sugar,
and that makes sense because the fruit in this
is extremely powerful, it's very, very strong.
That's really good.
The fruit itself I think is like a little bit too big
and too much for me to be like eating, but getting it
like as a juice where it's like diluted a little bit
and like with sugar
and stuff like that, just to kinda like make it
a little easier to take, totally.
This was very kindly given to me by Don Carlos
who is growing it here in Costa Rica, does grow here,
but it's not easy to find here.
You gotta specifically be growing it,
it's not really something that you'll find at a market.
Now I'm gonna warn you, these little white specs on it,
those are boreholes.
So some sort of insect has gotten in here
so I might open this up
and it's just gonna be full of insects,
and I'm not gonna eat that.
And the thing with this one
that's different than the other two
is that the rind on this is a thin hard shell.
So cutting it with a knife (knife tapping)
does not really do much 'cause there's nothing to cut.
More, I'm gonna try to like break it.
I'm gonna actually smack it with the back of the knife
and see if that'll work.
(knife whacking)
(knife whacking) How bad is the bug situation?
Uh, not terrible.
There are bugs in it, but it seems like
they're mostly getting in the rind on the outside
and they haven't really gotten into the flesh too much.
So I think we're okay.
I think we're okay.
I'm just gonna have to be careful
that I don't eat a bunch of bugs.
Get outta here.
This is Theobroma bicolor, also known as the mocambo fruit
or jaguar chocolate.
Theobroma bicolor is used for both the fruit
and for the seeds.
Aztecs actually used to use the seeds to make a chocolate
out of it, or chocolate drink rather, the same way
that they would with Theobroma cacao.
But when the Spaniards came
and tried the chocolates of these two
they did not like the bicolor chocolate drink as much
as they liked this one.
So over time, the chocolate made from this
kind of like fell out of fashion.
You might find this at a market in Central America,
also in Mexico, like southern areas of Mexico.
Sometimes this does show up, but also not super common.
This, you can find this all over the place.
Central America, South America, Mexico,
chocolate is produced all around,
and even in the US people are growing this
in places like Florida, California.
The rind of this is pretty hard,
it's harder than the cacao.
Let's see what happens with a good whack of a knife.
(knife whacking)
Hardly made a dent. (chuckles)
(knife whacking)
(car whooshing)
(pod smacking)
(fruit flesh squelching)
Ahh, I'm so excited.
Did you know that I have a web store?
It's true, over at weirdexplorer.com,
I sell these guys, Dorian Anatomy shirts,
I've got some mandrake root shirts,
some other stuff, a lot of fun things for sale over there.
And you probably think that in order to sell these things
I probably am hiring like some sort of web store
service that takes a big cut.
No, no, I do it all by myself and I do it with Squarespace.
I have been a happy customer of Squarespace
for over seven years.
And what I like about them is that they make it so easy.
There's all sorts of webs creation tools
and development tools and templates and stuff like that.
So even if you've never made a website before
you can make a website without too much trouble.
Whether it's for a personal page, a blog, a business page
or a web store to sell fruit related merchandise,
check out Squarespace.
So head over to squarespace.com to try it for free.
And then when you're ready to launch,
go to my link, squarespace.com/weirdexplorer
to get 10% off your first website or domain.
(upbeat jazzy music)
On the outside these are pretty different looking.
(chuckles) They're all very different from each other.
And when you cut them open
they're also pretty different looking.
The cacao here, as you can see, compared to the other two,
it's not nearly as fleshy.
With the Theobroma bicolor, you can see
that this thing is completely jammed full.
It's like the fruit goes all the way out,
it's very fleshy.
And the cupuacu, even more so, (chuckles)
there's like so much flesh
and just like a very thin rind to it.
These are prized for the seeds inside and you can see that.
So there's a big cavity there
for a small amount of fruit.
Over people cultivating it, the fruit got smaller,
the seeds got stronger and I think that's what's happened.
So I'm just gonna reach in and grab one out.
Just a little bit of flesh adhered to the seed.
(jazzy music) (Jared chewing)
The flavor of that fruit is good.
There just isn't a lot of it.
It's a little bit tart.
Three out of 10 on tartness, not quite an orange
but getting there.
It's quite sweet, maybe an eight out of 10 on sweetness.
It's got a little bit of like a
like a berry sort of note to it, maybe a little bit melony.
I've had some varieties that tasted
more like melons than others.
This one tastes more like a berry than a melon.
How I see this one is more of like a candy
because there isn't a lot of flesh there.
But just to like put one in your mouth
and get that flavor, it's a nice flavor
and also firmly attached to the seed
which I know everyone loves looking at this,
so let me give you a nice closeup.
That flesh is on that seed pretty tight
so you couldn't really chew it if you wanted to.
It's just something to kinda like suck on.
Like I said, it's kinda like a candy, not so much
like a fruit that you'd want for sustenance.
But the other cool thing about this seed
is that if you bite into this, there's a dark brown,
or in this case, a little bit purple (chuckles)
randomly on the inside.
You can really see how this is used to make chocolate.
Kind of looks like chocolate, kind of tastes like chocolate.
It's kinda like cocoa powder in taste.
It's got like that kind of bitterness
and that kind of flavor.
But some people actually take these
and they blend them up with like, you know,
water milk or soy milk or whatever.
And you know, you can actually have it raw.
But I've heard that having it in a large quantity
is not a good thing.
Okay, next.
The Theobroma bicolor,
definitely more of a substantial fruit.
Let's just grab a little hunk out of there.
And they kind of come out in these little wedges
like this, like little triangular wedges.
(Jared chewing)
The flavor of these two are nothing like each other,
maybe vaguely, vaguely like each other.
Sometimes these have a little bit of a melony taste.
Like I said, this one doesn't, this one definitely
has a melon-like flavor.
It's a very musky tasting fruit.
So when you eat it, it kind of gets you
in the back of your palate and in your nose a little bit.
It's also
a little bit funky, kind of like a cempedak,
which I know is a rare fruit also.
And people don't like it
when I compare one rare fruit with another rare fruit.
To make it more relatable, kinda like jackfruit.
Still, a little bit rare, but you can find jackfruit now
and jackfruit has a little bit of a funk to it.
Cempedak has like a thousand times that funk.
This one is not as funky as a cempedak,
but it's not as mild as a jackfruit,
it's like splitting the difference a little bit.
You know, I don't like cempedak so much
and I don't like melons so much,
but in this sort of balance
of those sorts of funky, musky flavors,
really works, really works.
I do actually like this quite a lot.
One interesting thing about the seed
of the Theobroma bicolor,
the outer bit of this seed is kind of woody
but the kernel on the inside tastes pretty good.
It tastes a little bit like almonds.
And finally, the cupuacu, it looks like just one big mass.
You can't really see a little break in it.
And it does split into hunks,
but it's harder to see just because there's so much flesh.
It's more like, it's almost like fluffy.
But once you do separate it
you can see it also has that little triangular shape to it,
similar to the bicolor.
This one smells sour.
And I remember this being sour when I had it
a few years ago.
Another thing that I should point out
before I take a bite out of this is
that the fruit itself, when it's closed up, has a scent,
a strong scent, it doesn't smell like any kind of fruit
that I know of.
It's almost like sweaty, savory kind of smell,
which is, it's interesting.
What does it taste like?
It's actually been a long time since I've eaten this
so I don't really remember.
I remember it being powerful.
(Jared chewing)
Oh, yeah, really powerful!
There's a reason why people don't really eat this one
out of hand.
They blend it with milk and that is to reduce that taste.
It's really good flavor, but it's really, really strong.
(Jared chewing)
Hmm, the tartness is like, I'd say is like a lemon.
It's like that high, it's like a 10.
I think how I described eating this
the first time I had it was it's like being dragged
down a hallway backwards
and being smacked in the head with fruits.
Just like this powerful hit of like a pineapple taste
and this hit of like a banana taste
and then a hit of like a berry taste.
And then you get this kinda like funky jackfruit
kind of taste, like it's all in there.
It does share similarities with the other two.
It does have a little bit
of the berry-like flavor that comes from the cacao
and it does have a little bit of that muskiness
and jackfruit taste that comes from the bicolor.
But also has more, if you want to eat it raw
you should do it with a few friends (chuckles)
because this has a lot of flesh to it
and a lot of intensity to it.
So I'm definitely not gonna be able to do this
in one sitting.
I'm gonna be nursing that for a while
if the bugs don't finish it before I do.
I really worked at trying to get the flesh
off of the seed and I, I just can't do it.
It's really, really tightly on there.
But you can see that it's kind of a brown color.
A little bit more similar to the cacao than the bicolor.
And let's bite through it.
(seed crunching)
The inside is white.
It's also very bitter.
This one I don't like so much.
I think maybe if you were to make this into chocolate
that bitterness would be a good thing
but it's a little bit harsh.
Yeah, not quite as nice.
Also, it oxidizes, you can see there that one is now orange.
Yep, I'm taking a bite out of it,
pretty quickly turned orange,
which did not happen with the bicolor
so I don't know what that means.
(upbeat jazzy music)
Well, that's it everybody.
A rare chance to try these three species
of Theobroma side by side and it's so interesting.
You can see some similarities between these
but there are so many differences
and how these are used are so different.
But all three of them are really good.
And the fact that people don't really eat the flesh
of the cacao I think is a shame because it is a tasty fruit.
You know, like sometimes it's better than others
but it's like a tasty fruit.
And the fact that you cannot get cupuacu
or bicolor through most of the world
when they have such a nice taste to them is a shame.
And the fact that the seeds are not more readily available
and they're not used to make chocolate.
There's so much potential with this genus.
You know, I mean there's a lot of potential
that people realize with the cacao
but with the other species as well.
And I hope that I was able to share some
of that with you today.
Hope you enjoyed it and I will see you next time, bye.
I would like to give a big shout out
to Smarter Every Day, LoftyRex and JMac.
They are mega patrons over on patreon.com.
Patreon, I'm sure you've heard about it,
but basically it is how I can afford to go
on all the adventures that I go on
on this channel and how I buy all the fruit that I buy.
So if you are interested in supporting the channel
check out the link in the description below.
Another way to help out is by going to my website.
My website has all my videos organized into categories
which is pretty cool.
And I also have T-shirts for sale over there.
So check it out and I will see you all next time.