Watch As African Cocoa Farmers Taste Chocolate For The First Time, ‘What Is This Again?’

The West African nation of Ivory Coast is the world’s largest exporter of cocoa beans. However, many of the cocoa bean farmers have never tasted the end product of their crop: a chocolate bar.

A Dutch public service broadcaster, VRPO, visited the Ivory Coast and allowed cocoa bean farmers in the area their first taste of chocolate. Prior to tasting the chocolate, NPR notes that many of the farmers didn’t even know what the cocoa beans were used for in America. Some of the farmers had heard that the cocoa beans were used to produce wine in the US, a myth that was passed down to them as a child. A farmer, N’Da Alphonse, says:

“Frankly, I do not know what one makes from cocoa beans.”

The reason many farmers have never even tried cocoa products is because more than a third of the world’s cocoa comes from Ivory Coast; it produces more than any other country in the world. But most of the farmers are small producers like Alphonse, cultivating less than 12 acres and struggling to survive. He’s supporting 15 family members on $9.40 a day. If he were to purchase a chocolate bar in his home area it would cost him $2.40 for a single bar. Therefore, it is no wonder he has never tried a bite.

When the chocolate bar is passed around to each farmer, some note how hard the bars are while others are surprised by how sweet the cocoa has become. Alphonse takes a chocolate bar to his workers and tells them that he has a nice surprise for them to try that is made from cocoa beans — something “white people are addicted to.” The men are impressed with the taste and said they didn’t realize “other products besides wine were made with” their beans. Again, the myth that cocoa beans are largely used to make wine had been passed down to these workers as well.

What do you think of the farmers reactions to their first taste of chocolate? Do you remember tasting your first chocolate bar?