Castlef wrote:

> Im sure nobody has done this before....... because supposedly the heat
> from the fermentation after the harvest of them kills off the germ.
> BUt i think it would be interesting to get unfermented raw cocoa beans
> and sprout them!!!!
>
> One day i will find them! :P

I've bought whole cacao beans at a Mexican food store
(beans imported from El Salvador, actually), and in every
bag there were always a few unfermented beans. What
did you think you could do with them? Cacao only can be
grown at tropical latitudes, and the supply is abundant and
cheap.

Unfermented cacao beans have very little chocolate flavor.
Fermentation is absolutely necessary to developing that
flavor.