What is the difference between cocoa beans and coffee beans | can you still drink coffee beans after they have expired?

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In daily life, many friends like drinking coffee and cocoa very much, and they often confuse that the raw materials of the two drinks are the same, foolishly confused. In fact, strictly speaking, coffee bean is just a general term, it includes many kinds, cocoa bean is one of them.

Native to tropical America, it can be used as drinks and chocolates. it is nutritious, mellow and fragrant. Cocoa beans are the fruit of cocoa trees. long before Columbus arrived in the United States, residents of tropical Central America, especially the Mayans and Aztecs, knew the use of cocoa beans, not only into beverages, but also as a medium of exchange. In the 16th century, cocoa beans were introduced into Europe, refined into cocoa powder and chocolate, and further refined into cocoa butter (cocoa butter).

Chocolate, formerly known as cocoa, is a seed taken from the fruit of a cocoa tree, which grows directly from tree trunks and branches, also known as cocoa pods. Chocolate, as we know it, is made from cocoa beans into cocoa powder and then added to sugar, milk, peanuts and other excipients, which has nothing to do with coffee.

Mature cocoa fruits, that is, cocoa pods, change in color from turquoise to yellowish brown or reddish brown, with different shapes and sizes and colors depending on the species of trees.

Split the pod and you can see cocoa beans wrapped in white floc. Take out the beans to dry, then bake them to be cocoa beans.

The growth conditions of cocoa are very harsh, the growth needs sufficient sunlight and temperature, but it can not be irradiated directly, so there must be good shading and wind protection measures. And cacao trees can only grow in tropical rain forests with rainfall of 1000 mm at 20 degrees north and south latitudes, 30-300m above sea level.

Coffee (coffee)

Coffee tree is a perennial evergreen shrub or small tree of Rubiaceae, which is a horticultural perennial cash crop. The origin of the coffee tree is Ethiopia in Africa. As coffee is a tropical woody plant of Rubiaceae, the climate is the decisive factor for coffee cultivation, and coffee trees are only suitable for growing in the tropics or subtropics, so the zone between latitude 25 degrees south and north is generally called coffee belt or coffee producing area.

When other growth conditions are the same, the higher the altitude, the better the quality of the coffee. Coffee beans, commonly known as coffee beans, are actually the seeds of the fruit of coffee trees, just because they are shaped like beans, so they are called coffee beans.

The ripe coffee berries look like cherries and are bright red with sweet flesh and contain a pair of seeds, namely coffee beans (Coffee Beans). After removing the pulp, washing and roasting, the coffee beans become the coffee beans we see now. after grinding the coffee beans into powder, we can use different utensils to extract the coffee we use every day.

In general, coffee beans grow on branches, a coffee fruit breaks open with two coffee beans, while cocoa fruit grows on a tree trunk, a cocoa fruit the size of a football, about 20-70 cocoa beans. In terms of crop picking time, coffee trees are harvested once a year, while cocoa fruits are harvested every two years. What they have most in common is that the climate requirements are similar.

There are two explanations for the so-called expiration:

One is the best taste period: freshly roasted coffee will maintain its best flavor for about two to three weeks.

One is the safe drinking period: coffee beans that have been stored for more than six months and stored in an unstable environment (high temperature and humidity) are not recommended to drink any more, but if they are well preserved, they are still safe to drink within a year, despite their poor flavor.

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