History of Cacao: From the Upper Amazon to the Chocolate Bar

Short answer: cacao (Theobroma cacao) comes from the upper Amazon, where the oldest known evidence of its use, about 5,300 years old, was found at the Santa Ana-La Florida site in southern Ecuador. From South America it reached Mesoamerica, where the Olmec used it at San Lorenzo between 1800 and 1000 BCE and the Maya and Aztecs drank it, offered it and even used the beans as money. Europeans met cacao in 1502, Spain adopted the drink in the 16th century, and the 19th century turned it into the chocolate we know: a Dutch press separated cocoa butter in 1828 and the first modern chocolate bar followed in 1847.

Cacao history at a glance

When	What happened	Source
About 5,300 years ago (c. 3300 BCE)	Cacao used and processed by the Mayo-Chinchipe culture at Santa Ana-La Florida, southern Ecuador	Zarrillo et al. 2018; Valdez et al. 2016; ICCO
1800–1000 BCE	Continuous cacao use at San Lorenzo, the Olmec capital on Mexico's Gulf Coast	Powis et al. 2011
Over 1,500 years ago	Criollo cacao cultivated by the Maya	Motamayor et al. 2002
16th century	Aztec documents record cacao beans used as currency	Smithsonian Magazine
1502	Christopher Columbus, on his fourth voyage, is the first European known to encounter cacao	ICCO; Coe & Coe
1528 or 1544	Cacao reaches the Spanish court (accounts differ, see below)	ICCO; Coe & Coe
c. 1635	Spanish Capuchin friars grow Criollo cacao in Ecuador	ICCO
1753	Linnaeus names the tree Theobroma cacao	The Chocolate Therapist (Wiley)
1765	Chocolate manufacturing begins in Massachusetts	BCcampus
1828	A Dutch chemist, Coenraad van Houten, finds a way to make powdered "Dutch cocoa" with a hydraulic press	Smithsonian Magazine; The Chocolate Therapist
1847	Joseph Fry makes the first modern chocolate bar	Smithsonian Magazine
1879	Cacao planted in Ghana, today one of the three largest producers	ICCO

Where did cacao originate?

Cacao originated in South America, east of the Andes, and the oldest evidence of its use comes from the upper Amazon of Ecuador. The International Cocoa Organization (ICCO) explains that the genus Theobroma, "food of the gods" in Greek, arose there and has 22 species, of which T. cacao is the best known.

In 2018, a team led by Sonia Zarrillo published in Nature Ecology & Evolution three independent lines of evidence (cacao starch grains, theobromine residues and ancient DNA) showing that people at the Santa Ana-La Florida site in southeast Ecuador used cacao about 5,300 years ago. The authors note that cacao had traditionally been thought to be first domesticated in Mesoamerica, and that genomic data place its greatest diversity, and its centre of origin, in the upper Amazon. The French research institute IRD, which excavated the site, attributes it to the Mayo-Chinchipe culture and reports cacao starch in narrow-necked ceramic bottles, a sign that cacao was also consumed as a liquid.

Cacao in Mesoamerica: Olmec, Maya and Aztec

Mesoamerica is where cacao became a drink of rulers, an offering and a currency. Its history there spans more than 34 centuries.

• Olmec: theobromine residues on pottery confirm the continuous use of cacao at San Lorenzo, the leading Olmec capital, between 1800 and 1000 BCE, including in a mortuary ritual (Powis et al., PNAS, 2011). Earlier residues had been found at Paso de la Amada on the Pacific coast and at El Manatí on the Gulf coast.
• Maya: Criollo cacao was cultivated by the Maya over 1,500 years ago. Genetic work led by Juan Carlos Motamayor (Heredity, 2002) found that this Ancient Criollo probably came from a few individuals in South America that may have been spread by people within Central America. Maya texts identify cacao as a valued article of trade and tribute and describe a drink flavoured with chili peppers.
• Aztec: the Aztecs drank xocoatl, a bitter drink brewed from cacao beans, and used the beans as money. According to a 16th-century Aztec document quoted by Smithsonian Magazine, one bean could be traded for a tamale and 100 beans could buy a good turkey hen.

The ICCO summarises the pre-Columbian uses in three words: food (a beverage mixed with corn flour and spices), currency and ritual.

How did cacao reach Europe?

Columbus was the first European known to encounter cacao, in 1502, but historians disagree on who first brought it to Spain. According to Sophie and Michael Coe's The True History of Chocolate, Columbus's son Ferdinand recorded a large Maya trading canoe carrying cacao beans, which the crew called "almonds", on the fourth voyage; the ICCO places the encounter in Nicaragua.

Account	How cacao reached the Spanish court
ICCO	Hernán Cortés, leader of the 1519 expedition to the Aztec empire, returned to Spain in 1528 with the recipe for xocoatl
Coe & Coe	In 1544, Dominican friars brought a delegation of Kekchi Maya nobles from Guatemala to visit Prince Philip, with cacao among their gifts

The Spaniards did not like the bitter drink at first. They began to serve it hot and sweetened with cane sugar, with spices such as cinnamon, aniseed and black pepper; the ICCO notes that it became popular at the Spanish court once sugar was added. By the 17th century, chocolate was a fashionable drink throughout Europe (Smithsonian Magazine).

How cacao cultivation spread around the world

European demand pushed cacao growing out of the Americas to Africa and Asia. The ICCO's record of the main steps:

• Latin America and the Caribbean: Spanish Capuchin friars grew Criollo cacao in Ecuador around 1635; France introduced cacao to Martinique and St Lucia in 1660, and England had cacao growing in Jamaica by 1670.
• Africa: Amelonado cacao from Brazil was planted in Príncipe in 1822, São Tomé in 1830, Nigeria in 1874 and Ghana in 1879.
• Asia: the Spanish introduced the first trees to Indonesia in the 16th century.

Today cacao grows in a belt between 10°N and 10°S of the Equator, and the three largest producers are Côte d'Ivoire, Ghana and Ecuador. For the tree, the pod and the producing regions in detail, read where the cocoa bean comes from.

From a drink to a bar: the 19th century

Until the 1820s chocolate was almost always a drink. In 1828 a Dutch chemist, Coenraad van Houten, used a hydraulic press to separate cocoa butter from the cocoa solids, producing a powder known as "Dutch cocoa" (Smithsonian Magazine). In 1847 Joseph Fry found that adding melted cocoa butter back into Dutch cocoa made a mouldable chocolate paste, the first modern chocolate bar. Milk chocolate followed later in the century.

The same steps still define chocolate making: the ICCO describes how cocoa liquor is pressed into cocoa butter and cocoa cake, and how chocolate is batched, refined, conched and standardised. To see how conching refines texture and flavour, read what conching is.

Criollo, Forastero and Trinitario: the classic cacao types

The historical classification divides cacao into three broad types, and fine-flavour cocoa is a small share of world production.

Type	What the ICCO says
Criollo	Dominated the market until the middle of the 18th century; today only a few, if any, pure Criollo trees remain
Forastero	A large group of cultivated, semi-wild and wild populations; Amelonado is the most widely planted
Trinitario	Descended from a cross between Criollo and Forastero; planting started in Trinidad and spread to Venezuela, then Ecuador, Cameroon and Asia

The ICCO adds that a newer classification into ten genetic groups (Amelonado, Criollo, Nacional, Contamana, Curaray, Guiana, Iquitos, Marañon, Nanay and Purús) reflects the genetic differences more accurately. As a generalisation, fine or flavour cocoa comes from Criollo or Trinitario trees and bulk cocoa from Forastero, with exceptions; fine or flavour cocoa is just under 5% of world production each year.

Venezuela's place in the story

Venezuela sits at the crossroads of this history: Trinitario cacao spread there from Trinidad (ICCO), and Ancient Criollo, the cacao the Maya grew, probably traces back to South America (Motamayor et al., 2002). Our Sur del Lago beans come from the southern basin of Lake Maracaibo, in Zulia and Trujillo, which the product sheet describes as one of the oldest cacao territories in the Americas. They are Trinitario cacao with 10–30% ancestral Criollo lineage, fermented to at least 65% uniformity and sun-dried for 7 days, with a Certificate of Origin and Authenticity for each lot.

For producers: work with cacao that carries its history

If you make chocolate, the origin you choose is part of the story you sell. These are the cacao products we stock, each with its own job:

Your need	What we recommend	Price
Bean-to-bar with Venezuelan Criollo lineage	Sur del Lago cocoa beans, Venezuela, 1.5 kg	$80.00
Bean-to-bar from the Peruvian Amazon	Ucayali cacao beans, Peru, 1.5 kg	$80.00
Venezuelan nibs for baking, decoration and drinks	Cacao nibs, single origin Venezuela, 1 kg	$69.95
A couverture made from Sur del Lago cacao	Bassan Sur del Lago 71% dark couverture, 5 kg	$273.00

• Sur del Lago beans (Canada Cacao Co.): fruity, woody and nutty notes with low acidity and low astringency. Priority allocation is available for standing B2B orders.
• Ucayali beans: raw, fermented and sun-dried fine-flavour beans from the Ucayali region of the Peruvian Amazon, for roasting and bean-to-bar production.
• Venezuelan cacao nibs: made from Carenero Superior, Río Caribe Superior and Sur del Lago beans, with 54–56% fat.
• Bassan Sur del Lago 71%: a dark couverture made in Canada from Venezuelan Trinitario cacao with ancestral Criollo lineage.
• KKO Real: we are the exclusive distributor in Canada of KKO Real, the Venezuelan cocoa powders, cocoa butter and cocoa liquor made by Procesadora Cacao Real.

To turn beans into chocolate, see our bean-to-bar machines, and for a reference on working chocolate once it is made, Chocolate, 6th edition, by Ramon Morató ($160.00 CAD) covers chocolate as a product, confectionery and chocolate making in 416 pages.

View raw cocoa beans →

How AI can help your production

Origin is a selling point, but only when it is accurate. Give an AI assistant your bean supplier's certificate, product sheet and the sources in this article, and ask it to draft a short origin story for your labels, menu or website that uses only those facts. Ask it to build a traceability sheet that links each batch of chocolate to its bean lot and certificate, so every claim on the label can be checked.

AI organises the information; tasting and the final decision stay with your chef.

Venezuelan and Peruvian cacao at Zucchero Canada

Zucchero Canada imports and distributes cacao for chocolatiers, bean-to-bar makers and pastry kitchens, and brokers Venezuelan cacao. Our beans, nibs and couverture ship within Canada only, like all our food products. Buying for a chocolate factory or a standing production? Contact us about volume and priority allocation, or call 587-774-8873 (toll free 877-741-8251).

Venezuelan cocoa beans | KKO Real | Bean-to-bar machines | Where the cocoa bean comes from | How to roast cacao beans

This article is for information only. Every business is different: draw your own conclusions based on your own expectations, budget and goals, and talk to qualified experts before you decide or invest.

Sources: Zarrillo S. et al., "The use and domestication of Theobroma cacao during the mid-Holocene in the upper Amazon", Nature Ecology & Evolution 2 (2018) 1879–1888; Valdez F., Lanaud C., Loor Solórzano R., Zarrillo S., "Origen de la domesticación del cacao y su uso temprano en Ecuador", Yaguarzongo 55 (2016) 12–14 (IRD); Powis T. G. et al., "Cacao use and the San Lorenzo Olmec", PNAS 108 (2011) 8595–8600; Motamayor J. C. et al., "Cacao domestication I: the origin of the cacao cultivated by the Mayas", Heredity 89 (2002) 380–386; International Cocoa Organization, "Growing Cocoa" and "Processing Cocoa"; A. Fiegl, "A Brief History of Chocolate", Smithsonian Magazine, 2008; The Chocolate Therapist (Wiley), ch. 1, citing S. D. Coe and M. D. Coe, The True History of Chocolate; BCcampus, Understanding Ingredients for the Canadian Baker, §7.1; Zucchero Canada product data for Sur del Lago and Ucayali cocoa beans, Venezuelan cacao nibs, Bassan Sur del Lago 71% and Chocolate by Ramon Morató.