Origins, Varieties, and Cultivation

Cacao (Theobroma cacao), “the drink of the gods,” and its main by-product, chocolate, are derived from the seeds of a fleshy pod, the fruit of the cacao tree. This tree is a tropical plant, certainly American and probably Amazonian in origin. In the Amazon region it is sometimes still found in its wild state, an understory plant usually well shaded by taller trees with dense foliage.

Today, cacao trees are sometimes grown in direct sunlight, thanks to modern fertilizers and hormonal treatments that help the trees produce a dense upper foliage. Most cacao trees, however, still require shade, and this is often provided by the simultaneous planting of shade trees and cacao saplings. Lemon trees, tall palms, and banana plants are employed, but more common is the aptly named madre de cacao, or “mother of the cacao” (Gliricidia sepium), another American native now found in all tropical areas. Various acacias and the coral tree have also been used to shade cacao plantations.

There is another species related to cacao, Theobroma bicolor, which is now a garden crop, although its pods were collected in the forest from ancient times until late in the Spanish-American colonial period. It does not produce true cacao and is known in Mesoamerica as pataxte or patlaxtli. Spaniards at first thought patlaxtli was harmful, but later they used the pods as a minor food and, in a few places, the tree to shade cacao trees.