COCOA
A BRIEF HISTORY OF
FOOD OF THE GODS
The cocoa plant Theobroma cacao (Food of the Gods) originated in the tropical regions of South and Central America.
It was treasured by the Mayans and indigenous people of the area and was first used as a drink to ward off disease and for celebratory purposes.
The use of kakawa, as it was known then, can be traced back at least 3000 years to the Olmec civilization, thence to the Mayans, the Aztecs of Mexico and eventually Europe.
Although cocoa originated in Mesoamerica, growing in the wild, demand eventually saw cultivation spread from Mexico down to Brazil and by extension into the islands of the Caribbean, significantly Trinidad, from where it was propagated into Africa and beyond.
Originally cocoa was toasted, ground, mixed with water and made into a drink, to which was added various spices including annatto, pepper, vanilla and even ground maize.
The Spanish Conquistadores who were exploring the Americas in search of a mythical City of Gold found that the drink was much more palatable with the addition of sugar and modern chocolate was born.
It was centuries later that solid chocolate and the ubiquitous chocolate bar were created.
The worldwide demand for chocolate has increased by leaps and bounds as the health benefits of cacao became known and cocoa and chocolate has become so much in demand, that supplies have begun to dwindle.
Since cocoa can only be grown in a fairly narrow band in the tropics, the demand for chocolate and cocoa products has outstripped the supply of beans, especially fine or flavour beans which produce the best tasting chocolate, creating a new interest in quality products from specialty producers.
Hopefully that will be translated into increased income for cocoa farmers, as the significant income in the chocolate industry does not now trickle down to the actual producers of the cocoa stock.
Trinidad was once the third largest producer of cacao beans in the world, but circumstances forced production down to a fraction of what it was originally and the cocoa estates have mainly gone into disuse and dilapidation.
In the late 19th to early 20th century, production in Trinidad grew to over 100 million pounds of cocoa per year, now it's down to only about 500 tons or a million pounds.
Interestingly enough, cocoa plantations were almost totally decimated by various diseases such as Black Pod and Witches Broom, which destroyed most of the planted stock, which consisted mainly of Criollo beans.
When the more hardy Forastero cocoa was imported from Venezuela to replace the dying Criollo stock, the cross breeding of the two varieties yielded a surprise: a new variety, now called Trinitario, which turned out to be the finest flavour cocoa in the world.
That caused a spike in the demand for the varieties created in Trinidad and which have now been exported to dozens of countries worldwide, where they have been again cross bred with other indigenous stock, especially Criollo, to create even more varieties with the desirable traits of fine flavour, disease resistance and high yield.
Sometimes serendipity plays the best hands.
