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Theobroma cacao, a tropical evergreen tree Cocoa bean, the seed from the tree used to make chocolate; Cacao paste, ground cacao beans. The mass is melted and separated into: Cocoa butter, a pale, yellow, edible fat; and; Cocoa solids, the dark, bitter mass that contains most of cacao's notable phytochemicals, including caffeine and theobromine.
The cocoa bean, also known as cocoa (/ ˈ k oʊ. k oʊ /) or cacao (/ k ə ˈ k aʊ /), [1] is the dried and fully fermented seed of Theobroma cacao, the cacao tree, from which cocoa solids (a mixture of nonfat substances) and cocoa butter (the fat) can be extracted. Cacao trees are native to the Amazon rainforest.
Cacao is commercially valued as the source of cocoa and chocolate. [10] Theobroma species are used as food plants by the larvae of some moths of the genus Endoclita, including E. chalybeatus, E. damor, E. hosei and E. sericeus. The larvae of another moth, Hypercompe muzina, feed exclusively on Theobroma cacao.
A tropical evergreen tree called Theobroma cacao bears large, oval pods containing the bean-like cacao seeds that today are roasted and turned into cocoa and multitudes of chocolate confections.
Chocolate is a food made from roasted and ground cocoa beans that can be a liquid, solid, or paste, either on its own or as a flavoring in other foods. The cacao tree has been used as a source of food for at least 5,300 years, starting with the Mayo-Chinchipe culture in what is present-day Ecuador.
Theobroma grandiflorum, commonly known as cupuaçu, also spelled cupuassu, cupuazú, cupu assu, or copoazu, is a tropical rainforest tree related to cacao. [2] Native and common throughout the Amazon basin, it is naturally cultivated in the jungles of northern Brazil, with the largest production in Pará, Amazonas and Amapá, Colombia, Bolivia and Peru. [2]
Chocolate is a Spanish loanword, first recorded in English in 1604, [1] and in Spanish in 1579. [2] However, the word's origins beyond this are contentious. [3] Despite a popular belief that chocolate derives from the Nahuatl word chocolatl, early texts documenting the Nahuatl word for chocolate drink use a different term, cacahuatl, meaning "cacao water".
Common names of Gliricidia sepium in English include: gliricidia, Mexican lilac, mother of cocoa (in India and Ghana), Nicaraguan cocoashade (in Trinidad and Tobago), quickstick (in Guyana and Jamaica), Aaron's rod (in Jamaica), and St. Vincent plum, among other common names.