You must remember to pick your ripe cacao from the tree as soon as possible to avoid rotting or being eaten by bats. You should also pay attention to how you pick your cacao from the tree. The correct way is to cut the stalk using special scissors, cleaver, or sickle. Make sure to leave about 1 to 1.5 cm of the stalk because later, new flowers will grow there. You can use gaff to help you pick cacao in places that are harder to reach.
After picking, put your cacao inside a special sack or basket for cacao. Your harvest then will be brought to a special place where they will break your cacao and get the seeds out.
Paring is done by splitting the cacao diagonally using blunt stick. Then the seeds inside are taken out.
You should avoid paring using sickle or knife because it might hurt the seeds inside thus lowering its selling quality in the market.
The seeds then are put into a big basin to drain and then put under the sun to let dry.
I hope this is the information you’re looking for. Good luck.