TheChocolateLifeLIVE – The Languages of Cocoa and Chocolate

By Clay Gordon | a year ago | 4 min read

Original photo by Etienne Girardet / Unsplash

Episode 79 – the first episode of 2023 – of #TheChocolateLifeLIVE starts streaming from 12:00~13:00 EST on Tue Jan 03, 2023.

Deciphering the differences between cacao and cacau are not all that difficult. One is Spanish in origin and the other is the Portuguese spelling of the same word. The same is true for chocolate and chocolat though there we run into differences in pronunciation as well.

But how did cacao (which itself is a re-spelling of the original Nahuat’l spelling) become cocoa and what are the differences between cacao and cocoa ... if there are, in fact, any meaningful differences between the two?

Watch just the first 3:30 or so of this as the creator stumbles around her definitions for cacao and cocoa. (There may be more usable information later in the video but I had to stop watching at 3:30 I was so frustrated.)

When it comes to the differences between cocoa and cacao (that aren’t really real differences) also take a look at ..

This video is in my Dangerous Videos playlist, linked to in the card below.

What is “real” chocolate? What is “fake” chocolate? What is craft chocolate? Why does anyone think that using the phrase plant-based when it comes to chocolate is anything other than annoying marketing speak? Is r/chocolate on Reddit a good source of technical information (and if not, why not)?

Perhaps even more importantly, why should we care? As someone who’s spent a large part of this career writing about complex topics and striving to be both factually/technically accurate and clear, it’s important to me. But why should we, more generally, care?

Speaking of “fake” chocolate, are these “real” paintings?

All of that, y mas, in this episode of #TheChocolateLifeLIVE.

What’s some of the more? A lawsuit was filed against The Hershey Company (“THC”) in Federal District Court in New York on Wednesday the 28th (I was first alerted to it on Saturday the 31st) stating three causes of action related to the presence of lead and cadmium in some of their products, as well as those of Lily’s, a brand THC purchased in 2021 for US $425 million. I have a PDF of the complaint – which is seeking to class certification and is demanding a jury trial – that was filed and I will review it and share some of my thoughts.