Where are cacao plants native?
Theobroma cacao
Theobroma cacao, also called the cacao tree and the cocoa tree, is a small ( tall) evergreen tree in the family Malvaceae, native to the deep tropical regions of the Americas. Its seeds, cocoa beans, are used to make chocolate liquor, cocoa solids, cocoa butter and chocolate.
Chocolate
Chocolate has been prepared as a drink for nearly all of its history. For example, one vessel found at an Olmec archaeological site on the Gulf Coast of Veracruz, Mexico, dates chocolate's preparation by pre-Olmec peoples as early as 1750 BC. On the Pacific coast of Chiapas, Mexico, a Mokaya archaeological site provides evidence of cacao beverages dating even earlier, to 1900 BC. The residues and the kind of vessel in which they were found indicate the initial use of cacao was not simply as a beverage, but the white pulp around the cacao beans was likely used as a source of fermentable sugars for an alcoholic drink.
An early Classic-period (460–480 AD) Mayan tomb from the site in Rio Azul had vessels with the Maya glyph for cacao on them with residue of a chocolate drink, suggests the Maya were drinking chocolate around 400 AD. Documents in Maya hieroglyphs stated chocolate was used for ceremonial purposes, in addition to everyday life. The Maya grew cacao trees in their backyards, and used the cacao seeds the trees produced to make a frothy, bitter drink.
Mokaya
The Mokaya are thought to be the first to domesticate cacao the precursor to chocolate. Around 1900 BC, they domesticated one of the dozen species of cacao and brought it from the upper Amazon. A Mokaya archaeological site provides evidence of cacao beverages dating to this time.
Health effects of chocolate
"Theobroma cacao", the cacao tree, produces seeds containing flavanols. The seeds have been used to make beverages for some 2000 years in Aztec, Olmec, and Maya civilizations in central and south America. The drinks were ascribed a wide variety of curative and stimulant properties, unsupported by experimental evidence. In the 19th century, chocolate as a solid was invented, and milk and sugar were added to create milk chocolate, high in fat and sugar. Doubtful research, sometimes funded by the chocolate industry, has at times made suggestions of possible health benefits for these products.
Santiago Mariño Municipality
Chuao is a small village founded in the 16th century famous in the world for its cacao plantations. The village is surrounded by mountains and dense rainforests to the south Caribbean Sea near the Henri Pittier National Park. There is no road access and visitors must come by boat from the town of Puerto Colombia along the coast, or by foot, crossing the mountains and the luxurious cloud forest from Turmero near Maracay.
Grande Riviere
Grande Riviere was initially settled by immigrants from Venezuela in the 1860s. They planted cacao as a cash crop, together with various subsistence crops. They were joined by immigrants from Tobago only 35 km to the northeast. This was the beginning of the cocoa boom in Trinidad which lasted from 1866 to 1920. Economic life was dominated by the Grande Riviere estate, a cocoa plantation which was the major employer in the area. In addition to working as wage labourers on the estate, villagers also grew cocoa on small holdings which was either sold to the estate or to outside buyers.
CocoaVia
Although all chocolate is made from cocoa beans, a natural source of cocoa flavanols, not all chocolate or cocoa-based products contain cocoa flavanols because most traditional cocoa handling and processing procedures can destroy them.
Santiago Mariño Municipality
In the Chuao plantation there are currently pure Criollo and hybrid varieties of cacao being grown. Criollo beans from Chuao are of very high quality, and are considered Venezuela's finest beans together with Porcelana Blanca beans from Lake Maracaibo (another genetically pure variety of Criollo). Amedei, an Italian chocolate maker, and Chocolate NAIVE, a Lithuanian bean-to-bar chocolate maker, offer chocolate bars made with Chuao cacao. Naive was the winner of the European gold medal at the International Chocolate Awards 2014.
Omanhene Cocoa Bean Company
Omanhene Cocoa Bean Company is a chocolate company headquartered in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, United States. Omanhene's chocolate beans come from the forests of Ghana. The difference between Omanhene's chocolate and their competitors (according to the company website) is that Omanhene's chocolate bars are made and processed in Ghana, whereas competitors buy the beans from a tropical country and ship them to countries like Canada or the United States to make chocolate bars.
Theo Chocolate
Theo has sourced beans from the Congo, Costa Rica, the Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Madagascar, Peru, and Venezuela. An equatorial crop, cocoa in the United States grows only in Hawaii.
Coffea canephora
Originating in upland forests in Ethiopia, "C. canephora" grows indigenously in Western and Central Africa from Liberia to Tanzania and south to Angola. It was not recognized as a species of "Coffea" until 1897, over a hundred years after "Coffea arabica". It is also reportedly naturalized in Borneo, French Polynesia, Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Jamaica and the Lesser Antilles.
History of chocolate
Pueblo people, who lived in an area that is now the U.S. Southwest, imported cacao from Mesoamerican cultures in southern Mexico or Central America between 900 and 1400. They used it in a common beverage consumed by everyone in their society.
Theobroma cacao
The cacao bean in 80% of chocolate is made using beans of the Forastero group, the main and most ubiquitous variety being the Amenolado variety, while the arriba variety (such as the Nacional variety) are less commonly found in Forastero produce. Forastero trees are significantly hardier and more disease-resistant than Criollo trees, resulting in cheaper cacao beans.
Nacional (cocoa bean)
The Nacional is a rare variety of cocoa bean found in areas of South America such as Ecuador and Peru. Some experts in the 21st century had formerly considered the Nacional bean to be extinct. Pure genotypes of the bean are rare because most Nacional varieties have been interbred with other cocoa bean varieties. The Ecuadorian cacao variety called “Nacional” traces its genetic lineage as far back as 5,300 years, to the earliest-known cacao trees domesticated by humanity. In the 18th and 19th centuries Nacional was considered by many European chocolatiers to be the most coveted source of cacao in the world because of its floral aroma and complex flavor profile. This was the golden era of Ecuadorian cacao, but it came to an abrupt end in 1916, when an outbreak of “Witches’ Broom” disease decimated the Nacional variety throughout the country. After the disease hit, germplasm from foreign cacao varieties was subsequently introduced into the country starting in the 1930s, which resulted in the widespread hybridization of Ecuadorian cacao. By the beginning of the 21st century most people believed that the pure Nacional genotype no longer existed.
History of chocolate
Nature Ecology & Evolution reported probably the earliest cacao use from approximately 5,300 years ago recovered from the Santa Ana (La Florida) site in southeast Ecuador.
Another find of chemically traced cacao was in 1984, when a team of archaeologists in Guatemala explored the Mayan site of Rio Azul. They discovered fifteen vessels surrounding male skeletons in the royal tomb. One of these such vessels was beautifully decorated and covered in various Mayan glyphs. One of these glyphs translated to "kakaw", also known as cacao. The inside of the vessel was lined with a dark colored powder, which was scraped off for further testing. Once the archaeologists took this powder to the Hershey Center for Health and Nutrition to be tested, they found trace amounts of theobromine in the powder, a major indicator of cacao. This cacao was dated to sometime between 460 and 480 AD
Environmental impact of cocoa production
Cocoa Beans are a high demand consumer item all over the world. They are used in products such as chocolate, candy bars, drinks and cocoa powder. However, cocoa farming and the production of cocoa beans are extremely fragile and labour-intensive processes. The process begins with a Cacao plant, or Theobroma cacao, in which the beans are extracted from pods that grow directly on the cocoa trees branches. Each pod contains roughly 30 to 50 beans. After the beans are extracted they must go through a time-consuming process of natural fermenting and drying. The farming process of cocoa can damage the environment depending on the practices of the farmer, as well as be limited by the environment itself. Global Climate Change, for example, causes longer drought seasons making it more difficult for farmers to plant and sustain new Cacao trees. Most of the environmental impact comes from .
Cacao necrosis virus
This disease is currently found in Colombia, Venezuela, Ghana, Nigeria, Sri Lanka, and Indonesia. It is widespread in Ghana and Nigeria. Ghana, Indonesia, and Nigeria are in the top five cacao producing countries in the world, and cacao is one of the main and among the most economically important exports in these regions. Withal, the disease has no apparent economic impact to these countries or the as outbreaks are small, localized, and easily controlled by eradication. The disease was first described and partially characterized in papers published in 1948 and 1972, respectively. Most of the research into this pathogen has historically been done in Ghana and Nigeria. Not much has been done to study the disease in recent years.
Persea schiedeana
Coyo is native to southern Mexico and parts of Central America. It occurs at altitudes up to 2800 meters in lowlands and montane tropical forests. It is cultivated for fruit and used as graft stock for common avocado.
Camellia ptilophylla
Camellia ptilophylla, also called the cocoa tea plant (not to be confused with the chocolate plant "Theobroma cacao"), is a species of "Camellia" plant found in Southern Asia. It is a naturally caffeine-free variety of plant used to make tea.
Raw chocolate
It takes around 4 to 5 months for the cacao pods to fully develop into a 20cm long pod. After several weeks, they ripen into a orange and red coloring. The cacao seeds themselves are small, brown, pebble like beans that are produced inside the cacao pods. On average 20 to 60 seeds are in each pod, and there are 20 to 30 pods produced a year. This plant grows in lowland tropical rain forest environments where shade, humidity, and regular rainfall occur. Places that fit these conditions include West Africa, the Amazon River basin of South America,and Mexico. These trees have a life span around 100 years.
Coconut
Genetic studies of coconuts have also confirmed pre-Columbian populations of coconuts in Panama in South America. However, it is not native and display a genetic bottleneck resulting from a founder effect. A study in 2008 showed that the coconuts in the Americas are genetically closest related to coconuts in the Philippines, and not to any other nearby coconut populations (including Polynesia). Such an origin indicates that the coconuts were not introduced naturally, such as by sea currents. The researchers concluded that it was brought by early Austronesian sailors to the Americas from at least 2,250 BP, and may be proof of pre-Columbian contact between Austronesian cultures and South American cultures, albeit in the opposite direction than what early hypotheses like Heyerdahl's had proposed. It is further strengthened by other similar botanical evidence of contact, like the pre-colonial presence of sweet potato in Oceanian cultures. During the colonial era, Pacific coconuts were further introduced to Mexico from the Spanish East Indies via the Manila galleons.
List of drinks
– chocolate is a processed, typically sweetened food produced from the seed of the tropical "Theobroma cacao" tree. Its earliest documented use is by the Olmecs of south central Mexico around 1100 BC. The majority of Mesoamerican people made chocolate drinks, including the Mayans and Aztecs, who made it into a drink known as "xocolātl" , a Nahuatl word meaning "bitter water".
Chuao
The Chuao plantations has been there for over 400 years growing Criollo and hybrid varieties of cacao. Chuao beans are of very high quality, and are considered world's finest beans together with Porcelana Blanca beans from Lake Maracaibo extremely rare and celebrated for their freshness. They are also the most expensive in the world. The Chuao region is hemmed in by mountains which reduces contact with people and insects from other areas. Scarcely 20 tons of cocoa are available each year. In November 2000, the Chuao cacao beans were awarded an appellation of origin under the title "Cacao de Chuao", allowing producers to negotiate higher prices and attract investment.
Black drink
Pottery samples recovered from sites in modern Southwestern United States and Northwestern Mexico have tested positive for the ratio of methylxanthines associated with those produced by "Ilex vomitoria". The same study also identified methylxanthines ratios associated with "Theobroma cacao". Neither plants are native to the areas from which the pottery samples were recovered, which suggests trading between areas where those plants are native. The chemical analysis also suggests a possible increase in drinks prepared from cacao after the year 1200, and a decrease in the use of drinks prepared from "Ilex vomitoria". Freshwater shells from Texas and Arkansas have been recovered from Pueblo Bonito, which have been used as possible evidence for the trade of "Ilex vomitoria" from the east. There are also some stands of "Ilex vomitoria" in Mesoamerica, so the exact origins of the "Ilex vomitoria" used to prepare the drinks is currently unknown.
Raw chocolate
The cacao tree, also known as Theobroma cacao, is where chocolate is first formed. The chocolate that is harvested from this tree is called the Cocoa bean. These beans are seeds found inside the pods of the cacao tree. The pods have a hard shell that is brightly colored and grows in clusters on the branches of the tree. Pods start as clusters of non-scented, small white flowers; this is a type of flowering cycle is called cocoa Cauliflory. These flowers are grown on the cushioning of the tree, or aged branches.
History of Ghana
The years of British administration of the Gold Coast during the 20th century were an era of significant progress in social, economic, and educational development. Communications and railroads were greatly improved. New crops were introduced. A leading crop that was the result of an introduced crop was coffee. However, most spectacular among these introduced crops was the cacao tree which had been indigenous to the New World and had been introduced in Africa by the Spanish and Portuguese. Cacao had been introduced to the Gold Coast in 1879 by Tetteh Quashie, a blacksmith from Gold Coast. Cacao tree raising and farming became widely accepted in the eastern part of the Gold Coast.
Avocado production in Mexico
Avocado is native to Central Mexico where its ancient history, established by archaeological evidence from Claude Earle Smith Jr., who discovered avocado cotyledon remains within deposits of the Coxcatlán Cave, in Tehuacán, in Puebla state, that date back to about 10,000 years ago. Nuevo León state has remnants of primitive avocado trees. It spread to other countries in the Americas including the United States. It is a "functional food" in the Americas; the many varieties which grow in Mexico suit the climatic conditions.
Coconut
Genetic studies have identified the center of origin of coconuts as being the region between Southwest Asia and Melanesia, where it shows greatest genetic diversity. Their cultivation and spread was closely tied to the early migrations of the Austronesian peoples who carried coconuts as canoe plants to islands they settled. The similarities of the local names in the Austronesian region is also cited as evidence that the plant originated in the region. For example, the Polynesian and Melanesian term "niu"; Tagalog and Chamorro term "niyog"; and the Malay word "nyiur" or "nyior".
Coca
Coca is known throughout the world for its psychoactive alkaloid, cocaine. The alkaloid content of coca leaves is relatively low, between 0.25% and 0.77%. The native people use it for a stimulant, like coffee, or an energy source or both. Coca-Cola used coca leaf extract in its products from 1885 and until about 1903. Extraction of cocaine from coca requires several solvents and a chemical process known as an acid-base extraction, which can fairly easily extract the alkaloids from the plant.
Cocaine
Until 2012, Colombia was the world's leading producer of cocaine. Three-quarters of the world's annual yield of cocaine has been produced in Colombia, both from cocaine base imported from Peru (primarily the Huallaga Valley) and Bolivia, and from locally grown coca. There was a 28% increase from the amount of potentially harvestable coca plants which were grown in Colombia in 1998. This, combined with crop reductions in Bolivia and Peru, made Colombia the nation with the largest area of coca under cultivation after the mid-1990s. Coca grown for traditional purposes by indigenous communities, a use which is still present and is permitted by Colombian laws, only makes up a small fragment of total coca production, most of which is used for the illegal drug trade.
Lipa, Batangas
The raising of cacao was introduced in Lipa by an Augustinian priest, Father Ignacio de Mercado, and that was the beginning of its cultivation throughout the Philippines.
Chocolate industry in the Philippines
Cacao, which originated from South American forests, is the source material of chocolate products. However, modern cacao is mostly produced by African and European countries such as the Ivory Coast, Germany and Belgium. As a minor player in the global industry, the Philippines also engages in cacao cultivation nearly everywhere around the archipelago, even during the early 1900s.
Davao City
The chocolate industry is the newest development in the city. Malagos Chocolate, developed here by Malagos Agriventures Corp., is now the country's leading artisan chocolate recognized worldwide. On the other hand, Seed Core Enterprises is the country's biggest exporter of cacao to Barry Callebaut. Durian which is locally grown and harvested in the city, is also a notable export, although banana is the largest fruit export in the city. Local corporations like Lorenzo Group, Anflo Group, AMS Group, Sarangani Agricultural Corp. and Vizcaya Plantations Inc. have operations and headquarters here. Multinational companies like Dole, Sumifru/Sumitomo and Del Monte have their regional headquarters here also.
Askinosie Chocolate
Askinosie Chocolate bars are made from 100% traceable, single-origin cocoa beans from three regions: San Jose Del Tambo, Ecuador: Zamora, Ecuador; Davao, Philippines; and Mababu, Tanzania. Though specializing in dark chocolate bars, their product line includes dark milk chocolate, white chocolate made from scratch, all natural cocoa powder, roasted cocoa nibs and chocolate hazelnut spread. Their new CollaBARation line has various craft, artisan food manufacturers’ products in their dark chocolate bars.
Coca
Coca is traditionally cultivated in the lower altitudes of the eastern slopes of the Andes (the Yungas), or the highlands depending on the species grown. Coca production begins in the valleys and upper jungle regions of the Andean region, where the countries of Colombia, Peru and Bolivia are host to more than 98 per cent of the global land area planted with coca. Coca plantations have also recently been discovered in Mexico, which could have major implications for the illegal cultivation of the plant.
Taza Chocolate
After building out a factory space in Somerville, Massachusetts in 2006, Whitmore acquired a mix of traditional and vintage machinery, including stone mills from Oaxaca, an Italian winnower from Dominican Republic, and a Barth Sirocco roaster from Italy. The cacao beans were initially bought from brokers, but Whitmore later traveled through Central and South America and the Caribbean in search of farmers who could work directly with him. Whitmore and his co-founder and wife, Kathleen Fulton, have maintained a Direct Trade relationship with every cacao grower from where they source the cacao beans.
Mondelez International
In September 2017, an investigation conducted by NGO Mighty Earth found that a large amount of the cocoa used in chocolate produced by Mondelez and other major chocolate companies was grown illegally in national parks and other protected areas in Ivory Coast and Ghana. The countries are the world's two largest cocoa producers.
Chocolate industry in the Philippines
According to the Philippines Statistic Authority's CountrySTAT, 81% of annual production of cacao in the Philippines comes from the Davao region. Davao del Sur, Davao City, Davao del Norte, Davao Oriental, and Compostela Valley are the top 5 producers in terms of volume of production in 2016. There are also more than 20,000 hectares of cacao farms in the region, and Davao City, amongst the 5 provinces, has the largest area of 6,060 hectares. The region is also home to one of the well-known cacao agri-ventures in the country, Malagos chocolate.
Chocolá
Discovered between 2003 and 2005, networks of stone-lined or stone-enclosed drains and conduits, extending at least 1.5 kilometers, demonstrate sophisticated hydraulics. Radiocarbon dating situates the system in the Late Middle Preclassic period, or as early as 500 BC. Early and later Post-Conquest ethnohistory attests that Soconusco, Suchitepéquez, and Escuintla were important centers for the production of cacao, a high water-demand plant. The same ethnohistory records very dense populations at the time of the Conquest and fierce fighting between various caciques for control of cacao in an area where today one finds Mazatenango, Cuyotenango, Zapotitlán, San Antonio, and Samayac, all indicated by ethnohistory to have been significant centers of cacao production and trade, and all clustered closely around the Chocolá site. While such ethnohistoric information cannot be relied on as direct evidence to characterize events and processes from millennia earlier, it seems reasonable to use these data as a guide for what one could look for, including evidence of large-scale exchange, perhaps most plausibly, of obsidian for cacao. If, indeed, archaeological evidence can be found to support intensive cacao cultivation at and around Chocolá, a yet stronger case will be made for the Southern Maya area as crucial to the rise of Maya civilization.
Cocoa bean
The cocoa bean or simply cocoa (), which is also called the cacao bean or cacao (), is the dried and fully fermented seed of "Theobroma cacao", from which cocoa solids (a mixture of nonfat substances) and cocoa butter (the fat) can be extracted. Cocoa beans are the basis of chocolate, and Mesoamerican foods including tejate, a pre-Hispanic drink that also includes maize.
Cacao swollen shoot virus
Cacao swollen shoot virus (CSSV) is a plant pathogenic virus of the family "Caulimoviridae" that primarily infects cacao trees. It decreases cacao yield within the first year of infection, and usually kills the tree within a few years. Symptoms vary by strain, but leaf discoloration, stem/root swelling, and die-back generally occur. The virus is transmitted from tree to tree by mealybug vectors. It was first discovered in Ghana in 1936, and is currently endemic in Togo, Ghana and Nigeria. Over 200 million trees have already been claimed by this disease, which has prompted Ghana to launch the most ambitious and costly eradication effort of any country in the world against a viral plant disease.
Chocolate
The Aztecs were not able to grow cacao themselves, as their home in the Mexican highlands was unsuitable for it, so chocolate was a luxury imported into the empire. Those who lived in areas ruled by the Aztecs were required to offer cacao seeds in payment of the tax they deemed "tribute". Cocoa beans were often used as currency. For example, the Aztecs used a system in which one turkey cost 100 cacao beans and one fresh avocado was worth three beans.
Coca eradication
With the growth of the Colombian drug cartels in the 1980s, coca leaf became a valuable agricultural commodity, particularly in Peru and Bolivia, where the quality of coca is higher than in Colombia. To supply the foreign markets, the cartels expanded the cultivation to areas where coca was not a traditional crop. Many poor campesinos, driven from the central highlands by lack of land or loss of jobs, migrated to the lowlands and valleys of the eastern Andes, where they turned to the cultivation of coca.
Malagos Chocolate
Malagos cultivates their own cacao at their Bureau of Plant Industry-certified farm at the foothills of Mount Talomo. They are also responsible for the fermentation, drying, sorting, roasting of the cacao beans they use in their production of chocolate. Their facility is situated above sea level.
Theobroma cacao
Cultivation, use, and cultural elaboration of cacao were early and extensive in Mesoamerica. Ceramic vessels with residues from the preparation of cacao beverages have been found at archaeological sites dating back to the Early Formative (1900–900 BC) period. For example, one such vessel found at an Olmec archaeological site on the Gulf Coast of Veracruz, Mexico dates cacao's preparation by pre-Olmec peoples as early as 1750 BC. On the Pacific coast of Chiapas, Mexico, a Mokaya archaeological site provides evidence of cacao beverages dating even earlier, to 1900 BC.
The initial domestication was probably related to the making of a fermented, thus alcoholic beverage. In 2018, researchers who analysed the genome of cultivated cacao trees concluded that the domesticated cacao trees all originated from a single domestication event that occurred about 3,600 years ago somewhere in Central America.
Cocoa bean
Chocolate was introduced to Europe by the Spaniards, and became a popular beverage by the mid-17th century. Spaniards also introduced the cacao tree into the West Indies and the Philippines. It was also introduced into the rest of Asia and into West Africa by Europeans. In the Gold Coast, modern Ghana, cacao was introduced by a Ghanaian, Tetteh Quarshie.
Trade in Maya civilization
Chocolate was used throughout the Maya region to make sauces, and for drinks. It was grown mostly in the lowlands, so it was often transported to the highlands. Chocolate has a long and interesting history in Mesoamerica. From the very beginning of Mesoamerican culture some 3500 years ago, it has been associated with long distance trade and luxury. The Pacific Coast of Guatemala, thought to be the original source of Olmec culture, was, and remained, an important area of cacao cultivation. The Maya passed on the knowledge of cacao through oral histories, in Jade and Obsidian among other stonework, pottery and the creation of intricate, multicolored documents (codices) that extolled cacao and documented its use in everyday life and rituals, centuries before the arrival of the Spanish. In the centuries after initial contact between the Spaniards and indigenous peoples of the New World, hundreds of descriptive accounts, monographs and treatises were published that contained information on the agricultural, botanical, economic, geographical, historical, medical and nutritional aspects of cacao/chocolate.
Coca tea
Coca tea, also called mate de coca, is an herbal tea (infusion) made using the raw or dried leaves of the coca plant, which is native to South America. It is made either by submerging the coca leaf or dipping a tea bag in hot water. The tea is most commonly consumed in the Andes mountain range, particularly Argentina, Bolivia, Colombia and especially in Peru, where it is consumed all around the country. It is greenish yellow in color and has a mild bitter flavor similar to green tea with a more organic sweetness.
History of chocolate in Spain
The [Mesoamerican] origin of the cacao tree (to which Linnaeus gave the scientific name Theobroma cacao in 1753) is disputed by modern botanical historians since there are different hypotheses about the region from which it comes. Thus, some theories point to the Amazon region; however, it is estimated that the plant also grew in the wild in other parts of Americas, including the plains of the Orinoco Basin. It is very likely that the Olmecs knew the cacao plant, in 1000 BC and transmit its use and cultivation to the Mayans, who were the first to describe cocoa in their hieroglyphics. There is some link between the blood of human sacrifice and the intake of cocoa, and samples found in Mayan tombs strongly imply that the drink was common in the noble classes. The role played in religious ceremonies was explained by Diego de Landa, in his book "List of Yucatan things".
Theobroma
"Theobroma cacao", the best known species of the genus, is used for making chocolate.Several species of "Theobroma" produce edible seeds, notably cacao, cupuaçu, and mocambo. Cacao is commercially valued as the source of cocoa and chocolate.
Chocolate industry in the Philippines
The chocolate industry in the Philippines developed after introducing the cocoa tree into Philippine agriculture. The growing of cacao or cocoa boasts a long history stretching from the colonial times. Originating from Mesoamerican forests, cacao was first introduced by the Spanish colonizers four centuries ago. Since then the Philippine cocoa industry has been the primary producer of cocoa beans in the Southeast Asia. There are many areas of production of cacao in the Philippines, owing to soil and climate. The chocolate industry is currently on a small to medium scale.
History of chocolate
Cultivation, consumption, and cultural use of cacao were extensive in Mesoamerica where the cacao tree is native. When pollinated, the seed of the cacao tree eventually forms a kind of sheath, or ear, 20" long, hanging from the tree trunk itself. Within the sheath are 30 to 40 brownish-red almond-shaped beans embedded in a sweet viscous pulp. While the beans themselves are bitter due to the alkaloids within them, the sweet pulp may have been the first element consumed by humans.
Moniliophthora perniciosa
"M. perniciosa" infection causes young pods to become deformed (these are called chirimoyas in Spanish), whereas infection of more mature pods will cause necrosis of seeds and render the pod worthless. This largely affects cocoa production in South American countries where their cash crop is cacao beans. In 1989, WBD was introduced to the cocoa producing state of Bahia of Brazil, where output diminished from 380,000 metric tons per year to 90,000 metric tons in the late 1990s. Due to this disease, Bahia, Brazil went from being the 3rd largest exporter of cacao beans to a net importer. Lack of cacao beans could increase the price for importing countries, and also for all cocoa products. The U.S. currently imports $100 million in cacao beans annually.
Agroecology in Latin America
A cabruca is an agroforestry system found in the Latin American countries of Belize, Mexico, Ecuador, Peru, Costa Rica and Brazil. These cabrucas, largely run by smallholder farmers, are the production locations for cacao trees that grow underneath the canopy of mixed native trees. This forest canopy like the shade coffee has been found to provide a diverse ecosystem. An example of the biological importance of cabrucas can be found in Brazil’s main cacao production region Southern Bahia, Brazil. A 2008 study of biodiversity conservation in cacao regions found that the cabrucas in Southern Bahia are used by a significant amount of native flora and fauna. Due to parts of the region experiencing high deforestation and fragmentation, these cabrucas are providing habitat, fragment connection, and edge effect reduction. Another study in Costa Rica on the role of these cacao plantations in maintaining avian diversity found that the plantations do not substitute for a forest but do provide a home for a large number of avian generalist species.
Corsican immigration to Puerto Rico
Hundreds of Corsicans and their families immigrated to Puerto Rico from as early as 1830, and their numbers peaked in the early 1900s. The first Spanish settlers settled and owned the land in the coastal areas; the Corsicans tended to settle the mountainous southwestern region of the island, primarily in the towns of Adjuntas, Lares, Utuado, Ponce, Coamo, Yauco, Guayanilla, and Guánica. However, it was Yauco whose rich agricultural area attracted the majority of the Corsican settlers. The three main crops in Yauco were coffee, sugar cane and tobacco. The new settlers dedicated themselves to the cultivation of these crops and within a short period of time some were even able to own and operate their own grocery stores. However, it was with the cultivation of the coffee bean that they would make their fortunes. Cultivation of coffee in Yauco originally began in the Rancheras and Diego Hernández sectors and later extended to the Aguas Blancas, Frailes and Rubias sectors. By the 1860s the Corsican settlers were the leaders of the coffee industry in Puerto Rico and seven out of ten coffee plantations were owned by Corsicans.
To'ak Chocolate
The chocolate bars are produced using the rare Nacional variety of cocoa bean, which some experts thought was extinct. Groves of cocoa trees producing the Nacional variety were discovered in the valley of Piedra de Plata located in the mountains of the Arriba cacao-growing region of Ecuador, in the province called Manabi. DNA analysis confirmed that the beans were comprised purely of the Nacional genotype.
Theobromine
Theobromine, formerly known as xantheose, is a bitter alkaloid of the cacao plant, with the chemical formula CHNO. It is found in chocolate, as well as in a number of other foods, including the leaves of the tea plant, and the kola nut. It is classified as a xanthine alkaloid, others of which include theophylline and caffeine. The compounds differ in that caffeine has an extra methyl group (see under Pharmacology section).
Chocolate
Trinitario is a natural hybrid of criollo and forastero. Trinitario originated in Trinidad after an introduction of forastero to the local criollo crop. Nearly all cacao produced over the past five decades is of the forastero or lower-grade trinitario varieties.
History of chocolate
Cacao powder was also found in beautifully decorated bowls and jars, known as tecomates, in the city of Puerto Escondido. Once thought to have been a very rare commodity, cacao was found in many more tecomates than once thought possible. However, since this powder was only found in bowls of higher quality, it led archaeologists to believe that only wealthier people could afford such bowls, and therefore the cacao. The cacao tecomates are thought to have been a center piece to social gatherings between people of high social status.
Coffea liberica
Coffea liberica (or Liberian coffee) is a species of flowering plant in the Rubiaceae family from which coffee is produced. It is native to western and central Africa from Liberia to Uganda and Angola, and has become naturalized in the Philippines, Indonesia, Seychelles, the Andaman & Nicobar Islands, French Polynesia, Central America, the West Indies, Venezuela, Colombia, Malaysia and Brazil.
Erythroxylum
Erythroxylum ("Erythroxylon") is a genus of tropical flowering plants in the family Erythroxylaceae. Many of the approximately 200 species contain the drug cocaine; "Erythroxylum coca", a native of South America, is the main commercial source of cocaine and of the mild stimulant coca tea. Another species, "Erythroxylum vacciniifolium" (also known as Catuaba) is used as an aphrodisiac in Brazilian drinks and herbal medicine.
Nestlé
In September 2017, an investigation conducted by NGO Mighty Earth found that a large amount of the cocoa used in chocolate produced by Nestlé and other major chocolate companies was grown illegally in national parks and other protected areas in Ivory Coast and Ghana. The countries are the world's two largest cocoa producers.
Chocolate industry in the Philippines
The cacao plant was primarily brought to the Philippines in the 1700s when a Spanish galleon from Mexico transported pure Criollo, considered to be one of the best kinds of cacao, from Mesoamerica to the Pacific. Although cacao trees were originally grown in Mexico and Central America, the Philippines became an ideal cultivation grounds for cacao because of its geography as a tropical rainforest located 10-15 degrees from the Earth's Equator, with the cacao belt located within 20 degrees of the Equator. Today, cacao trees are cultivated throughout equatorial region including the Caribbean, Africa, Southeast Asia, and the Pacific Islands of Samoa and New Guinea.
Caryocar amygdaliferum
Caryocar amygdaliferum is a plant native to the rain forests of the Choco region of Colombia and Panama. Its fruit consists of a spiny husk inside which a seed about three times the size of an almond develops. It has been used for similar purpose as the almond and was traded as a luxury item among the Inca in pre-conquest times and grown in the land of the Chachapoyas. It is also eaten by some species of bats.
Maya cuisine
Chocolate: With the cocoa tree being native to Maya land, the Maya are believed to be the first people to have discovered and cultivated the cacao plant for food. The cocoa beans were ground up mixed with chili peppers, cornmeal and honey to create a drink called "xocolatl" (a Nahuatl word). Only the rich and noble could drink this. They also used cacao beans as ceremonial sacrifices to their gods. The cocoa seeds were predominantly used to make other variations of the drink that were used as a stimulant mood enhancer and at ceremonies because for the Mayas, cocoa was a sacred gift from the gods. The cocoa plant or theobroma, which literally translates to "food of gods" was enjoyed by all social classes of Maya people and because of its stimulative aphrodisiac powers, Maya couples drank chocolate during ceremonies of marriage and engagement. Maya chocolate was much different than today's hot chocolate; it may have been served unsweetened and with a frothy texture , but this drink established the roots for one of today's most beloved treats.
Chocolate
Chocolate is a usually sweet, brown food preparation of roasted and ground cacao seeds. It is made in the form of a liquid, paste, or in a block, or used as a flavoring ingredient in other foods. The earliest evidence of use traces to the Olmecs (Mexico), with evidence of chocolate beverages dating to 1900 BC. The majority of Mesoamerican people made chocolate beverages, including the Maya and Aztecs. Indeed, the word "chocolate" is derived from the Classical Nahuatl word "chocolātl".
Bamboo
Most bamboo species are native to warm and moist tropical and warm temperate climates. However, many species are found in diverse climates, ranging from hot tropical regions to cool mountainous regions and highland cloud forests. In the Asia-Pacific region they occur across East Asia, from north to 50 °N latitude in Sakhalin, to south to northern Australia, and west to India and the Himalayas. China, Japan, Korea, India and Australia, all have several endemic populations. They also occur in small numbers in sub-Saharan Africa, confined to tropical areas, from southern Senegal in the north to southern Mozambique and Madagascar in the south. In the Americas, bamboo has a native range from 47 °S in southern Argentina and the beech forests of central Chile, through the South American tropical rainforests, to the Andes in Ecuador near . Bamboo is also native through Central America and Mexico, northward into the Southeastern United States. Canada and continental Europe are not known to have any native species of bamboo. As garden plants, many species grow readily outside these ranges, including most of Europe and the United States.
Coca
Chewing coca leaves is most common in indigenous communities across the central Andean region, particularly in places like the highlands of Argentina, Colombia, Bolivia, and Peru, where the cultivation and consumption of coca is a part of the national culture, similar to chicha. It also serves as a powerful symbol of indigenous cultural and religious identity, amongst a diversity of indigenous nations throughout South America. Tobacco leaves were also traditionally chewed in the same way in North America, though modern chewing tobacco is typically heavily processed.
One option for chewing coca is with a tiny quantity of "ilucta" (a preparation of the ashes of the quinoa plant) added to the coca leaves; it softens their astringent flavor and activates the alkaloids. Other names for this basifying substance are "llipta" in Peru and the Spanish word "lejía", "bleach" in English. The consumer carefully uses a wooden stick (formerly often a spatula of precious metal) to transfer an alkaline component into the quid without touching his flesh with the corrosive substance. The alkali component, usually kept in a gourd ("ishcupuro" or "poporo"), can be made by burning limestone to form unslaked quicklime, burning quinoa stalks, or the bark from certain trees, and may be called "ilipta", "tocra" or "mambe" depending on its composition. Many of these materials are salty in flavor, but there are variations. The most common base in the La Paz area of Bolivia is a product known as "lejía dulce" ("sweet lye"), which is made from quinoa ashes mixed with aniseed and cane sugar, forming a soft black putty with a sweet and pleasing flavor. In some places, baking soda is used under the name "bico".
Theobroma cacao
The genome sequence enables cacao molecular biology and breeding for elite varieties through marker-assisted selection, in particular for genetic resistance to fungal, oomycete and viral diseases responsible for huge yield losses each year. In 2017–18, due to concerns about survivability of cacao plants in an era of global warming in which climates become more extreme in the narrow band of latitudes where cacao is grown (20 degrees north and south of the equator), the commercial company, Mars, Incorporated and the University of California, Berkeley are using CRISPR to adjust DNA for improved hardiness of cacao in hot climates.
Chocolate
Until the 16th century, no European had ever heard of the popular drink from the Central American peoples. Christopher Columbus and his son Ferdinand encountered the cacao bean on Columbus's fourth mission to the Americas on 15 August 1502, when he and his crew seized a large native canoe that proved to contain cacao beans among other goods for trade. Spanish conquistador Hernán Cortés may have been the first European to encounter it, as the frothy drink was part of the after-dinner routine of Montezuma. Jose de Acosta, a Spanish Jesuit missionary who lived in Peru and then Mexico in the later 16th century, wrote of its growing influence on the Spaniards:
Loathsome to such as are not acquainted with it, having a scum or froth that is very unpleasant to taste. Yet it is a drink very much esteemed among the Indians, where with they feast noble men who pass through their country. The Spaniards, both men and women, that are accustomed to the country, are very greedy of this Chocolaté. They say they make diverse sorts of it, some hot, some cold, and some temperate, and put therein much of that 'chili'; yea, they make paste thereof, the which they say is good for the stomach and against the catarrh.
While Columbus had taken cacao beans with him back to Spain, chocolate made no impact until Spanish friars introduced it to the Spanish court. After the Spanish conquest of the Aztecs, chocolate was imported to Europe. There, it quickly became a court favorite. It was still served as a beverage, but the Spanish added sugar, as well as honey, to counteract the natural bitterness. Vanilla, another indigenous American introduction, was also a popular additive, with pepper and other spices sometimes used to give the illusion of a more potent vanilla flavor. Unfortunately, these spices had the tendency to unsettle the European constitution; the "Encyclopédie" states, "The pleasant scent and sublime taste it imparts to chocolate have made it highly recommended; but a long experience having shown that it could potentially upset one's stomach", which is why chocolate without vanilla was sometimes referred to as "healthy chocolate". By 1602, chocolate had made its way from Spain to Austria. By 1662, Pope Alexander VII had declared that religious fasts were not broken by consuming chocolate drinks. Within about a hundred years, chocolate established a foothold throughout Europe.
Patrick Edward McGovern
The laboratory and collaborators began studying some of the most ancient chocolate from ancient Mesoamerica (ca. 1400-1100 B.C.) in 2004 Jars from Puerto Escondido in Honduras were in the shape of the cacao ("Theobroma cacao") pod or fruit, as if to advertise the contents as being a chocolate beverage. The fruit's sweet pulp contains about 15% sugar, which naturally ferments to a 5 to 7% alcoholic beverage. This beverage might have led to the domestication of the tree. In later Mayan and Aztec times, the chocolate beverage was made from the beans (seeds) with additives including honey, chili peppers, fragrant flowers, etc. Like grape wine, rice wine, and barley beer in the Old World, chocolate "wine" went on to become the prerogative of royalty and the elite generally, and a focus of religion in the New World. No additives were detected in the early Puerto Escondido vessels, so it is likely that the chocolate beverage then was made only from the pulp.
History of coffee
The introduction of coffee to the Americas was effected by Captain Gabriel des Clieux, who obtained cuttings from the reluctant botanist Antoine de Jussieu, who was loath to disfigure the king's coffee tree. Clieux, when water rations dwindled during a difficult voyage, shared his portion with his precious plants and protected them from a Dutchman, perhaps an agent of the Provinces jealous of the Batavian trade. Clieux nurtured the plants on his arrival in the West Indies, and established them in Guadeloupe and Saint-Domingue in addition to Martinique, where a blight had struck the cacao plantations, which were replaced by coffee plantations in a space of three years, is attributed to France through its colonization of many parts of the continent starting with the Martinique and the colonies of the West Indies where the first French coffee plantations were founded.
History of chocolate
Cultivation of the Cacao was not an easy process. Part of the reason was that was due to the fact that, Cacao trees in their natural environment grew up to 60 or more feet tall. When the trees were grown in a plantation however, they grew to around 20 feet tall.
Chocolate (color)
Geography
Santiago Mariño Municipality
In November 2000, the cacao beans coming from Chuao region were awarded an appellation of origin under the title "Cacao de Chuao" (from Spanish "Cacao de Chuao") effectively making this one of the most expensive and sought after types of cacao.
Pre-Columbian cuisine
The seeds of this plant held monetary value to the Aztecs, and were also common in ceramics. The chocolate that comes from it gave rise to a variety of beverages. Due to the specificity of the environments in which they can succeed, cacao bean cultivation was highly regionalized, grown in plantation-like monocultures.
Chocolate industry in the Philippines
Cocoa Foundation of the Philippines (CocoaPhil) is a non-profit, umbrella organization which represents the interests of the local cocoa industry. Their aim is to increase the number of hectares growing cocoa with the goal of achieving the Philippines Cacao Roadmap made by the Department of Agriculture and the Department of Trade and Industry. The specific objective of the organization is to develop at least 100,000 hectares into cacao farms as an intercrop under coconut trees.
Theobroma cacao
In 2008, researchers proposed a new classification based upon morphological, geographic, and genomic criteria: 10 groups have been named according to their geographic origin or the traditional cultivar name. These groups are: Amelonado, Criollo, Nacional, Contamana, Curaray, Cacao guiana, Iquitos, Marañon, Nanay, and Purús.
Theobroma cacao
The sequence of the cacao genome identified 28,798 protein-coding genes, compared to the roughly 23,000 protein-coding genes of the human genome. About 20% of the cacao genome consists of transposable elements, a low proportion compared to other plant species. Many genes were identified as coding for flavonoids, aromatic terpenes, theobromine and many other metabolites involved in cocoa flavor and quality traits, among which a relatively high proportion code for polyphenols, which constitute up to 8% of cacao pods dry weight. The cacao genome appears close to the hypothetical hexaploid ancestor of all dicotyledonous plants, and it is proposed as an evolutionary mechanism by which the 21 chromosomes of the dicots' hypothetical hexaploid ancestor underwent major fusions leading to cacao's 10 chromosome pairs.
Chocolate industry in the Philippines
In the Philippines, Cacao or cocoa beans are produced in many locations. These include Luzon, Mindanao, Joló, Basilan, Panay, Negros, Cebú, Bohol, Masbate and many more. Cocoa also refers to cocoa powder and cocoa butter, which are two by-products of the cacao bean after it has undergone processing. Cocoa and chocolate processing was first introduced in the country by Commonwealth Foods Inc. (ComFoods) in 1953, while Serg's Chocolate Products Inc. became the first modern chocolate manufacturing plant in Southeast Asia.
Moniliophthora roreri
Moniliophthora roreri is a basidiomycete fungus that causes frosty pod rot disease, one of the most serious problems for cacao ("Theobroma cacao"— the source of chocolate) production in Latin America. This disease and together with witches’ broom disease (caused by "M. perniciosa") and black pod rot (caused by "Phytophthora" sp.) constitute the cacao disease trilogy.
It causes serious losses in southwestern parts of South America; spores are dry and powdery and are spread easily by water movement, wind, or movement of pods; disease spread is highest during periods of high rainfall.
Caffeine
"Xocolatl" was introduced to Europe by the Spaniards, and became a popular beverage by 1700. The Spaniards also introduced the cacao tree into the West Indies and the Philippines. It was used in alchemical processes, where it was known as "black bean".
History of chocolate
Earliest evidence of domestication of the cacao plant dates to the Olmec culture from the Preclassic period. The Olmecs used it for religious rituals or as a medicinal drink, with no recipes for personal use. Little evidence remains of how the beverage was processed.
Pristimantis cacao
Pristimantis cacao is a species of frog in the family Craugastoridae.
It is endemic to Colombia.
Its natural habitat is tropical moist montane forests.
It is threatened by habitat loss.
Economic history of Ecuador
During the second half of the nineteenth century, cacao production nearly tripled, and total exports increased tenfold. As a result, the Costa became the country's center of economic activity. Guayaquil dominated banking, commercial, and export-import affairs. During the first two decades of the twentieth century, cacao exports continued to be the mainstay of the economy and the principal source of foreign exchange, but other agricultural products like coffee and sugar and fish products were also important exports. The decline of the cacao industry in the 1930s and 1940s, brought about by chronic pestilence and the loss of foreign markets to competitors, had debilitating repercussions for the entire economy. During the 1950s, government-sponsored replanting efforts contributed to a partial revival of the cacao industry, so that by 1958 Ecuador was the world's sixth leading exporter of cacao. Nonetheless, by the early 1950s bananas had replaced cocoa beans as the country's primary export crop.
Chocolate industry in the Philippines
After the seeds are selected carefully from highly productive trees which pest-free and disease-free, seeds are planted immediately either “at stake”, controlled seed beds, pots, or nurseries before they are transplanted to plantations. When field soils are forest land with good organic matter, tillage is not necessary. However, if the cacao is to be planted with other cash crops, a more thorough preparation, which includes plowing and harrowing the land, is needed. Roads, drainage, and shade trees are also established. Based on studies about distancing, cacao is generally planted in the following: cacao laid in rows 2 meters apart if open areas, 2.5 meters away from the base if under coconut trees, close planting followed by thinning, or 3 by 3 meters or 3 by 4 meters apart.
Domesticated plants and animals of Austronesia
Genetic studies of coconuts have also confirmed pre-Columbian populations of coconuts in Panama in South America. However, it is not native and display a genetic bottleneck resulting from a founder effect. A study in 2008 showed that the coconuts in the Americas are genetically closest related to coconuts in the Philippines, and not to any other nearby coconut populations (including Polynesia). Such an origin indicates that the coconuts were not introduced naturally, such as by sea currents. The researchers concluded that it was brought by early Austronesian sailors to the Americas from at least 2,250 BP, and may be proof of pre-Columbian contact between Austronesian cultures and South American cultures, albeit in the opposite direction than what early hypotheses like Heyerdahl's had proposed. It is further strengthened by other similar botanical evidence of contact, like the pre-colonial presence of sweet potato in Oceanian cultures. During the colonial era, Pacific coconuts were further introduced to Mexico from the Spanish East Indies via the Manila galleons.
To'ak Chocolate
In January 2016, To’ak's cacao was designated Heirloom by the Heirloom Cacao Preservation Fund (HCP). To’ak also has social and environmental objectives in mind. Their product is organic and fair trade and they partner with the Ecuador-based rainforest conservation foundation Third Millennium Alliance. To’ak and the foundation are currently working together to preserve this endangered cacao variety by DNA grafting and planting of new seedlings in a protected area in Ecuador To'ak co-founder, Jerry Toth, has written a Nacional cacao conservation blog which serves as an extensive guide for environmentally friendly cacao cultivation techniques based on permaculture.
List of food origins
The most famous crop domesticated in the Ethiopian highlands is coffee. Khat, ensete, noog, teff and finger millet were also domesticated in the Ethiopian highlands. Crops domesticated in the Sahel region include sorghum and pearl millet. The kola nut, extracts from which became an ingredient in Coca-Cola, was first domesticated in West Africa. Other crops domesticated in West Africa include African rice, African yams, black-eyed peas and the oil palm.Although the fruits of Australia were eaten for thousands of years as bushfood by Aboriginal people, they have only been recently recognized for their culinary qualities by non-indigenous people. Many are regarded for their piquancy and spice-like qualities for use in cooking and preserves. Some Australian fruits also have exceptional nutritional qualities, including high vitamin C and other antioxidants.
Chiapas
Agriculture, livestock, forestry and fishing employ over 53% of the state's population; however, its productivity is considered to be low. Agriculture includes both seasonal and perennial plants. Major crops include corn, beans, sorghum, soybeans, peanuts, sesame seeds, coffee, cacao, sugar cane, mangos, bananas, and palm oil. These crops take up 95% of the cultivated land in the state and 90% of the agricultural production. Only four percent of fields are irrigated with the rest dependent on rainfall either seasonally or year round. Chiapas ranks second among the Mexican states in the production of cacao, the product used to make chocolate, and is responsible for about 60 percent of Mexico's total coffee output. The production of bananas, cacao and corn make Chiapas Mexico's second largest agricultural producer overall.
Chocolate
Although cocoa originated in the Americas, West African countries, particularly Côte d'Ivoire and Ghana, are the leading producers of cocoa in the 21st century, accounting for some 60% of the world cocoa supply.
History of chocolate
Christopher Columbus encountered the cacao bean on his fourth mission to the Americas on August 15, 1502, when he and his crew seized a large native canoe that proved to contain among other goods for trade, cacao beans. His son Ferdinand commented that the natives greatly valued the beans, which he termed almonds, "for when they were brought on board ship together with their goods, I observed that when any of these almonds fell, they all stooped to pick it up, as if an eye had fallen." But while Columbus took cacao beans with him back to Spain, it made no impact until Spanish friars introduced chocolate to the Spanish court.
Spanish conquistador Hernán Cortés may have been the first European to encounter chocolate when he observed it in the court of Montezuma in 1519. In 1568, Bernal Diaz, who accompanied Cortés in the conquest of Mexico, wrote of this encounter which he witnessed:
From time to time they served him [Montezuma] in cups of pure gold a certain drink made from cacao. It was said that it gave one power over women, but this I never saw. I did see them bring in more than fifty large pitchers of cacao with froth in it, and he drank some of it, the women serving with great reverence.
Chocolate industry in the Philippines
The Fabros Farm covers around 50 hectares and 30,000 tree seedlings are planted. has two locations – Agtedtedted, the pioneer farm, and Mumunsi, in Aurora. Cacao is endemic in Maria Aurora and cacao trees are grown in backyards. Mumunsi Chocolate Café is named after the mountain where cacao trees are planted.
Chocolate
The most commonly grown bean is forastero, a large group of wild and cultivated cacaos, most likely native to the Amazon basin. The African cocoa crop is entirely of the forastero variety. They are significantly hardier and of higher yield than criollo. The source of most chocolate marketed, forastero cocoas are typically strong in classic "chocolate" flavor, but have a short duration and are unsupported by secondary flavors, producing "quite bland" chocolate.
Cocoa production in Ivory Coast
Ivory Coast (Côte d'Ivoire) leads the world in production and export of the cocoa beans used in the manufacture of chocolate, , supplying 33% of cocoa produced in the world. West Africa collectively supplies two thirds of the world's cocoa crop, with Ivory Coast leading production at 1.8 million tonnes , and nearby Ghana, Nigeria, Cameroon and Togo producing additional 1.55 million tonnes. Ivory Coast overtook Ghana as the world's leading producer of cocoa beans in 1978, and today is highly dependent on the crop, which accounts for 40% of national export income. The primary non-African competitor of Ivory Coast is Indonesia, which went from having almost nonexistent domestic cocoa industry in the 1970s to becoming one of the largest producers in the market by the early 2000s. According to the UN FAO, Indonesia overtook Ghana and became the second-largest producer worldwide in 2006. (World Cocoa Foundation provides significantly lower figures for Indonesia, but concurs that it is the largest producer of cocoa beans outside West Africa.) Large chocolate producers such as Cadbury, Hershey's, and Nestle buy Ivorian cocoa futures and options through Euronext whereby world prices are set.
William Vivour
The cocoa tree itself was introduced to Sao Tome in 1822 and from there it reached Fernando Po in 1854; it was from Fernando Po that the crop spread to the Gold Coast and Nigeria. The British granted the first concessions around Clarence to 'original settlers' in the late 1820s." The Spaniards thought it politic to recognize existing property rights as long as there were signs that plots had been cultivated in some way. Of the land grants listed in 1891, 32 appear to have belonged to Creoles, judging by the names. Vivour was the Fernandino with most land, 202 hectares in all
Moniliophthora perniciosa
Moniliophthora perniciosa (previously "Crinipellis perniciosa") is a fungus that causes "witches' broom disease" (WBD) of the cocoa tree ("Theobroma cacao" L.). "T. cacao" a tropical tree with seeds that are processed into cocoa (=cacao) products. This pathogen is currently limited to South America, Panama and the Caribbean, and is perhaps one of the best-known cocoa diseases, thought to have co-evolved with cocoa in its centre of origin (first recorded in the Brazilian Amazon in 1785).
Cocoa panyols
Panyols Estate Families began inter-marrying with Sierra Leone Africans around 1841 period and thereafter within Cocoa Estates Community, which included the invited Africans, and from additional islands that were given Cocoa Estate Lands. That assemblage of Landowner Elite Free Community included those that invited the Sierre Leone Community in Diego Martin and intermarried to unite work-forces needed at that time. The Panyols and those invited were all a part of the Cedula of Populations and those later invited, including from Venezuela after the 1838 Abolition of Slavery, to save the industry. Migrants from Venezuela settled and brought in workers from Venezuela. The Estate owners used Venezuelans peasants to farm the lands, and a few intermarried, in particular in Diego Martin, within the 1841 from Sierra Leone Africa, invited group and with that community formed an integral part of the Estate Lands settlers in that Region. Among their descendants today are the Emmanuel, Herrera's, Tardieu, George, Felix, Hospedales and Thomas families, and these are among the larger that families of Maraval, Paramin and Diego Martin. They became an integral part of the Cocoa Farms Estate owners and settled many of the lands and regions in Maraval, Paramin, St, Ann's, and Diego Martin with their descendants expanding lines and Trade interest, and are yet of primary Venezuelan Spanish ancestry. The name comes from the "patois" word for Spanish, "espagnol", or even Spanish word "Español" and reflects the historical association between the group and the cultivation of cacao in Trinidad (Cocoa Español).
Moniliophthora roreri
In Colombia, specifically in the Santander region, average annual losses are of 40% of dry cacao equivalent to US$33 million due to the disease. In Ecuador, during the 1918 outbreak, cacao exportation was reduced from 46,000 to 37,700 tons due to frosty pod rot. In Peru, around 16,500 ha of cacao were abandoned mostly as a result of frosty pod rot, with a final result that Peru went from being an exporter of chocolate to a net importer. In Mexico, in the state of Tabasco, the first report of the disease was in April 2005, and by 2007, frosty pod rot had invaded all cacao areas of the state, becoming the major limiting factor to cacao production there, as well as in Nicaragua and Honduras.
Chocolate industry in the Philippines
The cacao tree, whose scientific Latin name given by Swedish botanist Carolus Linnaeus in 1753 is "Theobroma cacao", is one of the 22 "Theobroma" species. "Theobroma" means “food for the Gods", from the Greek words "theo" (god) and "broma" (food). This species is utilized as raw materials for pharmaceutical products and cosmetics, however, cacao is primarily used for the production of chocolate and cocoa by processing the beans.
Cocoa bean
The cacao tree is native to the Amazon Basin. It was domesticated by the Olmecs and Mocayas (Mexico and Central America). More than 4,000 years ago, it was consumed by pre-Columbian cultures along the Yucatán, including the Mayans, and as far back as Olmeca civilization in spiritual ceremonies. It also grows in the foothills of the Andes in the Amazon and Orinoco basins of South America, in Colombia and Venezuela. Wild cacao still grows there. Its range may have been larger in the past; evidence of its wild range may be obscured by cultivation of the tree in these areas since long before the Spanish arrived.