Cacao

Now you may hate that I floored my blog with pictures of cacao but what can I say, this is MY fucking blog and I'm fascinated by this fruit.

1. Cacao (Mayan: Kakaw Nahuatl: Cacahuatl)-> Now we understand where the word Cacao comes from.
2. Belongs to the Sterculiaceae(or Malvaceae) family.
3. Native to the tropical region of the Americas.

However, isn't it fascinating that the country that produces the most cacao is Côte d'Ivoire(Ghana comes in the second but the production of cacao in ghana is barely half the amount of cacao Côte d'Ivoire produces). I will get back to this later.

4. Its seeds are used to make cocoa and chocolate.
5. There are two competing hypotheses about the origins of the wild Theobroma cacao tree.
- Southeastern Mexico-> Domestication of cacao -> the Amazon basin
- Amazon -> distributed by humans -> Central America and Mesoamerica.

6. Where can it be found? -> in the low foothills of the Andes at elevations of around 200-400m in the Amazon and Orinoco river basins.



7. It requires a humid climate with regular rainfall and good soil.
8. The leaves are poisonouns and inedible. They are filled with a creamy, milky liquid and taste spicy and unpleasant. (What the hell, is this supposed to be a warning? now I want to go and taste the cacao leaves!)

9. Cacao flowers(small and pink) are pollinated by tiny flies.
10.The fruit is called a cacao pod.
-It is ovoid
-15–30 cm (6–12 in) long and 8–10 cm (3–4 in) wide.
-ripening yellow to orange, and weighs about 500 g (1 lb) when ripe.
-The pod contains 20 to 60 seeds, usually called "beans", embedded in a white pulp.
-Each seed contains a significant amount of fat (40–50% as cocoa butter).
-Their most noted active constituent is theobromine,a compound similar to caffeine.

11. Cacao is grown both by large agro-industrial plantations(LATIFUNDIO!) and also by small producers.
12. A tree begins to bear when it is four or five years old.
13. A mature tree may have 6,000 flowers in a year, yet only about 20 pods. About 300-600 seeds (10 pods) are required to produce 1 kg (2.2 lb) of cocoa paste.
->so that means a mature cacao tree can produce about 2 kg of cocoa paste.
14. There are 3 main cultivar groups of cacao beans.
A)Criollo Group - the most prized, rare and expensive, Makes up for 10% of the international chocolate production.
Mayan cocoa beans. It's less bitter and more aromatic than any other bean.
B)Forastero group - 80%. Trees are hardier than Criollo trees. Resulting in cheaper cacao beans.
C)Trinitario - a hybrid of Criollo and Forastero, is used in about 10% of chocolate.

Major cocoa bean processors: Hershey's, Nestlé and Mars.


(source)
Coe, Sophie D.; and Michael D. Coe (1996). The True History of Chocolate. London: Thames & Hudson. ISBN 0-500-01693-3.
A. Frison, M. Diekman and D. Nowell (2000). Cacao. FAO / IPGRI Technical Guidelines for the Safe Movement of Germplasm No. 20. ACRI - FAO - IPGRI. http://www.bioversityinternational.org/Publications/pubfile.asp?ID_PUB=360.
A.B. Eskes and Y. Efron, editors (2006). Global Approaches to Cocoa Germplasm Utilization and Conservation. CFC - ICCO - IPGRI. http://www.bioversityinternational.org/Publications/pubfile.asp?ID_PUB=1172.