Theobroma Cacao

The Tree of the Gods

Michael Clymer

It is the million dollar tree. What tree you may ask? It is Theobroma

Cacao or the Cacao Tree is a tropical grown tree that is what chocolate is

made out of. Yet chocolate does not come from the tree itself. The chocolate

that the world devours daily is a by-product of the cacao beans, grown within

the pod of Theobroma Cacao.

Cacao has been grown in the understory of the rainforest in the

northern part of the Amazon Basin. It thrived there because of the shade on

the forest floor and lived on the water and nutrients passed down from the

canopy above where the taller trees grow. Theobroma Cacao is native to

what is now Venezuela. But that is the past and in the future, as in these

days, the tree grows in low land tropical forests. The best climate for the tree

to grow is that there is a constant temperature at around 69.8° and 89.6°

Fahrenheit. But not only that, the climate temperature must never go below

59°F for the Cacao tree to survive.

Not only is there a temperature for to tree to grow but there are also

optimal elevation heights that must be maintained for the tree to grow as

well. Cacao as a tree cannot grow above 3,280 feet and most of the time

Cacao grows under 984 feet. This is a tree that must have quite a bit of

water yearly. Cacao must have 39.4-98.4 inches of rainfall throughout the

year. The rainfall must distribute well so that not all of the rain comes at

once. There also has to be no less than 3.9 inches of rainfall per month.

Because of this it may seem like there are only a few places in the world for

Cacao to grow but in fact there are many.

Cacao grows all over the world, yet more so in some places than

others. For example, the largest amounts of species are found in the

northwestern part of South America. But to contradict that, over half of the

supply of commercially grown Cacao world-wide comes from two East African

countries. One being the Ivory Coast, exporting 45%. The other, the Ivory

Coast’s neighbor, Ghana, exporting 13%. While Africa is growing their

amount, Indonesia comes in third in world exports, exporting 11%. Brazil,

Ecuador, Cameroon, Nigeria, Madagascar, Sri Lanka, and Venezuela all

export significant amounts of the world’s supply of Cacao. Other exporters of

Cacao are, Columbia, the Congo/Zaire, Cuba, Costa Rica, Fiji, the Dominican

Republic, Grenada, Gabon, Haiti, Jamaica, Malaysia, Panama, south-central

Mexico, Papua New Guinea, the Philippines, Peru, Sau Taune, Sierra Leone,

Togo, Western Samoa, and Trinidad. So as it is simple to see, Cacao is grown

everywhere, and it is a good thing too, because two billion pounds of

chocolate is produced every year.

There are three main classifications of the Theobroma Cacao. There is

the Criollo (cree-YO-yo), the Forastero, and the Trinitario. The Criollo produce

the best quality pods of the three, but the downside is that Criollo is more

prone to disease. It also produces fewer Cacao pods per year. The Forastero

is more resistant to disease compared to the Criollo and yields a higher crop

count. Forastero produced 80% of the world’s crop of Cacao. Trinitario is a

natural hybrid of Criollo and Forastero. It is named after Trinidad where it

originated. Since it is a hybrid of the two it shares qualities of both the

Forastero and the Criollo. The Trinitario produces 10% of the world’s supply.

The Cacao tree can live up to one hundred years though the

cultivated trees are considered economically productive for only sixty years.

When the tree is grown naturally from a seed or bean it has a six-seven foot

taproot. But with cultivation, most of the worlds Cacao plantations use

cuttings or vegetative reproduction, which results in a tree with no taproot.

The leaves on the Cacao tree are almost six inches in length and are

just over three inches wide. Young leaves are reddish in color. The leaves

being red make the younger, newer leaves less affected by the intense sun.

The new leaves hang vertically too, to also help minimize damage from the

sun. The leaves are oblong in shape and are attached to the trunk closer to

the ground and on the branches as the tree grow taller.

There are different ways for the Cacao to reproduce. A

few that happen naturally in the wild and others that take place on

plantations. On Cacao plantations there are two main ways to reproduce the

Cacao tree. The first is to harvest the pods and sow the beans or seeds. The

only problem with this is that there are then less Cacao beans to dry and sell

to chocolate manufacturers. Another problem with naturally sowing the

seeds is that on many plantations around the world, the farmers grow

multiple types of Cacao. The problem is there is a chance that the pollen of

one species accidently fertilizes the blossoms on a different species of tree.

This could potentially be problematic because then there would be a mix of

both trees.

The second way on plantations is to graft. A bud is taken from one tree

and stuck into an eighteen inch tree that is serving as the host. It takes a

month or so to see if the bud has been compatible with the host tree. If so, it

is a newly fertilized tree, so five to six months later the new tree is ready to

plant and grow. There are a few ways for new trees to grow in the wild.

Technically this is not growing but pollination. Mainly there is one type of

animal that pollinates the Cacao tree. It is the Forcipomyiinae Midge. It is in a

family of biting midges but only the female’s drink blood, so it is an

omnivorous insect. Without the Forcipomyiinae Midges there would be no

chocolate at all. The flowers are usually pollinated in the morning. The

midges must do it fast, because in twenty-four hours the flowers will die if

not pollinated. Hurry up midges we want our chocolate!!

The way that new trees are grown in the wild is by the spreading of the

beans by some of the local animals. Mainly that animal is the Capuchin

Monkey. The way that this happens is that the Capuchin Monkey breaks open

the husk or outer shell of the Cacao pod and eats the pulp that surrounds the

beans on the inside of the pod. The pulp is completely edible and is said to

resemble the consistency of an apple and the taste to be lemony or like a

mango. It then spreads all of the seeds around the jungle allowing more

trees to grow. This is called symbiosis.

Symbiosis is when two organisms coexist with each other or,

sometimes at least, because there are three different main types of

symbiosis. There is mutualism, commensalism, and parasitism. Mutualism is

where both organisms benefit, commensalism is one organism benefits, but

the other does not get hurt, and parasitism is where one organism benefits,

while the other gets hurt of killed.

The symbiosis between the Cacao tree and the Capuchin Monkey is a

simple yet effective one. All that is happening between the two is that the

Capuchin is getting food and the Cacao is spreading its seed and therefore

reproducing. This is just one example of the many different symbiosis

partners out there in the world.

There are many different subspecies of Capuchin Monkey. Some of

them are: the Golden-Bellied Capuchin, the Tufted Capuchin, the White-

Fronted Capuchin, the Black Capuchin, the Black-Striped Capuchin, the Blond

Capuchin, the Kaapori Capuchin, the Large-Headed Capuchin, and the

Weeper Capuchin. These are most of the Capuchin subspecies, but there are

most likely more to discover.

There are ways that the Cacao tree protects itself,

whether it is by human means or how it has formed over the many hundreds

of years it has been here. This year two different teams of scientists are

taking the genetics of the Cacao tree. They are trying to make it so that the

Cacao tree is to become more resistant to diseases in the future. This

experiment was started in early September so there have been no updates

to how the research is progressing. Though while the scientists are working

on that, the Cacao tree has something that helps it already. Wild grown

Cacao trees have a really deep root system compared to most tropical trees.

This is because it lives in the riparian zone. A riparian zone is the interface

between a river or stream and land. The Cacao tree has these roots in the

riparian zone so that it can reach that water. Protection is vital to anything in

the wild so that it can survive, this is the Cacao trees way.

There are so many amazing and interesting facts about the Cacao tree.

Some of the most amazing are that Cacao leaves can move a full 90° from

vertical to horizontal and back again. The leaves do that so that the sun can

hit the leaves better and so that the bigger leaves can protect the smaller

younger ones too. This is possible because of a small node at the base of the

leaves. The node stiffens and UN-stiffens with temperature change. Cacao

has been cultivated for almost 3,000 years, and in ancient Mayan days the

beverage that the tribe traditionally made of Cacao was only for men to drink

because it was believed to be toxic to women and children. The scientific

name for Cacao is Theobroma Cacao. There are many debates about who

first named Cacao. But it is known that it comes from Theo meaning ‘god or

gods’ and broma meaning ‘food’. Put together it means ‘food of the gods” of

more literally ‘god food’. Another fact about Cacao is that the tree is grown

in a band 20° north and south of the equator. See, some might think of

Cacao as just a tree, but first of all it supplies everyone one of the most

consumed of sweet treats around, and second it is so very interesting to

learn about.

Chocolate, some might be saying I want to know about chocolate! Well

here you go. As one should know by now, chocolate is made out of the beans

of the Cacao tree that grow within the pods. But this is how it is to become

the creamy goodness we all know and love.

Chocolate is not an overnight process. To be precise just growing the

pods takes around five months. And then after that there are only twenty-

fifty beans in each pod, and it takes roughly twenty-twenty-five PODS to

produce a small amount of two-point-two pounds of raw cacao. When the

pods are first picked off of the tree, the beans are bitter and not at all good,

so all of the beans have to be fermented. Then after fermentation the beans

are dried and sent to a manufacturer. There the beans are roasted and the

shell is removed to produce what is commonly known as the ‘cacao nib’. This

is what is ground up to make what is referred to as ‘cocoa mass’. It is usually

liquefied and is therefore referred to as ‘chocolate liquor’. This is what is

mixed with different ingredients to create either bitter baking chocolate, or

the sweet chocolate that we consume. Most of the times this is what the

general ingredients for different types of chocolate:

Dark

Chocolat

e

Sugar Cocoa

Butter

Cocoa

Liquor

Vanilla

(Sometim

es)

White

Chocolat

e

Sugar Cocoa

Butter

Milk Vanilla

Milk

Chocolat

e

Sugar Cocoa

Butter

Cocoa

Liquor

Milk Vanilla

Some people might want to just look at chocolate, but remember, also

think about the Cacao tree because without that there would be no

chocolate. Just because it is a tree doesn’t mean it isn’t special. So hooray to

chocolate, but hip, hip, hooray to Theobroma Cacao, the Tree of the gods.

Works Cited

"All about Chocolate -- History." All about Chocolate -- Www.xocoatl.org --

Mrk.'s Chocolate Site. Web. 22 Sept. 2010.

<http://www.xocoatl.org/history.htm>.

"All about Chocolate -- the Cacao Tree." All about Chocolate --

Www.xocoatl.org -- Mrk.'s Chocolate Site. Web. 18 Sept. 2010.

<http://www.xocoatl.org/tree.htm>.

Ehrenberg, Rachel. "A Taste of the Chocolate Genome." Science News 15

Sept. 2010. Science News. 15 Sept. 2010. Web. 26 Sept. 2010.

<http://www.sciencenews.org/view/generic/id/63417/title/A_taste_of_th

e_chocolate_genome>.

"Growing Cocoa." This and That. Web. 18 Sept. 2010.

<http://www.waynesthisandthat.com/test7.html>.