Cocoa And Chocolate
The Tree, The Bean The Beverage

li /i 1 i i 8 THE COCOA AND CHOCOLATE INDUSTRY perhaps, a score of species of Theobroma, but the only ones of commercial importance are Theobroma cacao, Theobroma pentagona and Theobroma sphaerocarpa, and of these, Theobroma cacao produces at least nine-tenths of the world’s cacao. There are two principal varieties of Theobroma cacao, called Criollo and Forastero. These names have been wrested from their original meaning, which was “ Creole ” and “ foreign,” implying respectively, that one kind of cacao was native, and the other imported from a foreign country. The use of these names in this sense could only lead to confusion, and botanists have agreed to classify the trees according to the character of the pods and the seeds they contain. The pods of Theobroma cacao show small but appreciable variations as one passes from country to country, and out of this chaos the botanist attempts to make order by noting the more fundamental resemblances and differences. Of the various classifications, the simplest is that men-tioned above, which divides into two main varieties, Criollo and Forastero, and then into local types and sub-varieties. The table below, after Van Hall, illustrates this—■ Criollo Local Types Venezuela Criollo Ceylon Criollo Java Criollo Samoa Criollo Madagascar Criollo Nicaragua Criollo THEOBROMA CACAO Forastero Sub-varieties Angoleta (Trinidad Forastero) Cundeamor (bottle-necked, so-called Trinidad Criollo) Amelonado (melon-shaped) Calabacillo (round and smooth) Criollo. The pods of this variety are as embossed as a crocodile’s back or the bark of an ancient oak. The shape is somewhat like an elongated lemon., only that it is broad at the point where the stalk is attached and