cocoa beans

The cocoa bean, also cacao bean or simply cocoa or cacao, is the dried and fully fermented fatty seed of Theobroma cacao, from which cocoa solids and cocoa butter can be extracted. The “beans” are the basis of chocolate, as well as Meso-american foods, such as mole and tejate. The word “cocoa” derives from the Spanish word cacao, derived from the Nahuatl word cacahuatl. The cacao tree is native to the Americas. It originated in Central America as well as parts of Mexico.

Originally over 5000 years ago, consumed by pre-Colombian cultures along the Yucatán including the Mayans, and as far back as Olmeca civilization in spiritual ceremonies. It can be found as well in the foothills of the Andes in the Amazon and Orinoco basins of South America, current-day Colombia and Venezuela. Today examples of wild cacao still can be found there. However, it may have had a larger range in the past, evidence for which may be obscured because of its cultivation in these areas long before, as well as after, the Spanish arrived.

New chemical analyses of residues extracted from pottery excavated at an archaeological site at Puerto Escondido in Honduras indicate cocoa products were first consumed there between 1400 and 1500 BC. The new evidence also indicates that, long before the flavor of the cacao seed (or bean) became popular, the sweet pulp of the chocolate fruit, used in making a fermented (5% alcohol) beverage, first drew attention to the plant in the Americas. The cocoa bean was a common currency throughout Meso-america before the Spanish conquest.