Cocoa Farmers Try Chocolate For the First Time

Everyone loves chocolate — and those rare souls who do not are not to be trusted (just kidding, we love you guys). But it turns out that the people who make all of this deliciousness possible, the cocoa farmers, often have never even tasted chocolate. So what happens when they try the fruits of their labor for the first time? A crew from Metropolis TV went to the Ivory Coast to find out.

The Ivory Coast, or the Republic of Côte d'Ivoire, in West Africa is the world's largest source of cocoa. But even though cocoa beans are one of the country's biggest exports, chocolate is highly expensive there, costing about $2.50. For cocoa farmers and laborers, that puts it way out of their price range. The farmer in the video, Alphonse, makes only about $9 a day.

It's kind of mind boggling to think that the very people who make chocolate possible may never have even tasted the stuff. It's a little bit like the fact that iPhones and iPads, which have been manufactured in China for years, weren't actually available to Chinese consumers until 2012. Globalization is weird.

It seems unfair that most cocoa farmers don't get to experience chocolate. But when Selay Marius Kouassi, the guest correspondent for Metropolis TV, pulls a chocolate bar out of his pocket, it's a totally new experience for the people of the Ivory Coast. And if there's ever an argument for buying only fair trade chocolate from now on, it's the look on their faces when they try it.

Image: VPRO Metropolis/YouTube