Minecraft’s Java edition has had cocoa beans since May 2012, and Minecraft’s Bedrock edition has had them since 1.2. Players can find these beans growing out of jungle logs in jungle biomes.
Chocolate cookies and brown dye can also be made from this Minecraft plant in a similar manner to other crops. In spite of this, it is not planted in the ground. Jungle logs planted with cocoa beans will produce pods. There are around three cocoa beans in each cocoa pod after it has fully grown.
Procedure to make cocoa beans in Minecraft
- Break the leaves in your jungle. Don’t leave any place without cocoa plants, you will need every single one of them.
- Place an apple or sapling in each spot where a cocoa plant will be, then break the leaves again (the apple/saplings will disappear when the leaves regrow). Since there can only be 4 plants per log block, this is why you want to build your farms along the edges of logs instead of in their center. More space efficient and faster harvesting with less wasted space for more growing room.
- Plant cocoa beans on top of the saplings, then start chopping down your jungle trees one by one just next to it. You don’t have to worry about chopping down too many jungle trees because the more space you clear, the more space there is for cocoa plants.
- After you’ve harvested all of your jungle logs, continue growing cocoa beans by planting them on top of the jungle logs just like you did with saplings.
- Pick up your results every so often if necessary. If the leaves die back and leave only apples behind, replant them as soon as possible or they will disappear after a few days.
Factors on which farms depend
There are three factors to consider when deciding how big your farm should be:
- Each log block can hold 4 cocoa plants
- The blocks adjacent to each other share their light level
- You need 4 adjacent blocks to stand in for a cocoa plant if it is going to be planted outside the log block. You should adjust your farm size based on 1) and 2)
For example
Let’s say you’ve chosen to clear out a field of jungle trees 15 blocks long. 15 by 4 = 60 cocoa plants will fit on this one line! On the other side of your clearing, build another line of jungle logs so you have two lines next to each other, or 30 total leaf spaces. You can move down halfway from there because you still want some space between them for harvesting purposes. At one-third up/downward this would be about 11 logs long by 5 logs wide (55 cocoa plants), at one-fifth this would be about 7 logs long by 6 logs wide (42 cocoa plants).
How you can maximize your cocoa bean farm?
There are many other variables that you must consider when trying to maximize your cocoa bean farm. Every block of jungle trees has two spots that can grow cocoa beans, but only if the light level is between 8 and 15 blocks away from a torch, which means you need at least 5 blocks of space in all directions around them to plant cocoa beans there.
Therefore while sticking to just one line of jungle log may seem efficient having 30 lines next to each other sounds like it should yield more than 60 times as many plants. It doesn’t work out mathematically because it requires too much unplanted space for farming. This comes up often when clearing out jungle biomes to make room for cocoa bean farms.
Procedure
You can also utilize cocoa beans grown in jungle temples or abandoned mineshafts by replanting them somewhere else. This intended as a supplement to help people who are having trouble getting started with harvesting cocoa bean.
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Automatic harvesting
In Minecraft 1.8 cocoa beans drop from jungle wood when broken by the player or a piston, allowing for automated harvest of cocoa beans. The easiest way to farm cocoa is to create a line of 4-6 wooden pistons pointing at an area filled with jungle wood and 1 torch in a dispenser. This will break all the cubes and allow you to collect them easily while standing next to the pistons. However, this design only allows up to 6 beans per harvest, so it can’t be extended very far.
By use of piston
Alternatively, you can use sticky piston to quickly pick up cocoa beans without having to walk back and forth over the pistons. Place a block in front of a row of pistons so that there is a space between it and the piston. Put two lines of sticky pistons moving outwards from each other, with their arms staggered by one block away from each other (the first one should be X+1 blocks away from the player).
Place a torch on top of the middle cube that was pulled up by the sticks. To make sure that it only harvests cocoa beans put an opaque block above the torch (so it doesn’t go out). Also note that if you place snow next to or on top of the sticks, then cocoa beans will not be able to spawn.
Positioning the sticky piston
Place a second line of sticky pistons facing inward at X+1 block spacing with their arms staggered by one block away from each other (the first one should be 1 block away from the player). This can be used to pick up cocoa beans without having to walk back and forth over the pistons. Put the second line of stickies about 15 blocks behind the first row so that all rows have a 5-6 block gap between them. Make sure that its arms are staggered so it won’t pick up anything except for cocoa beans. The final product should look a bit like a plus symbol (+).
Place one line of 4-6 piston heads angled outwards away from each other about 15 blocks from a line of jungle wood so that it clears all the cubes and allows you to collect them easily while standing next to the pistons. However, this design only allows up to 6 beans per harvest, so it can’t be extended very far. Alternately an alternate way that allows for up to 20+ cocoa bean harvests is done by creating two lines of 12 (or more) piston heads angled outwards away from each other about 15 blocks from a line of jungle wood. This allows for much longer rows and much more harvest per trip.
