Cacao, a tree whose scientific name is Theobroma cacao, grows exclusively
between twenty degrees north and south of the equator, making it by definition tropical.
Before it was cultivated, cacao grew wild in Central and South America
and may have been harvested and consumed sporadically. Successive cultures in what is now
Central America used it for ceremonies, as a type of currency, and, to a degree, as a food.
When Cortez landed in Mexico in the early 1500's, cacao was a prized
agricultural product, although certainly not a staple of the Aztec or
Mayan diet. It is probable, to the extent that cacao was domesticated,
that it grew in settings similar to its natural habitat. Later, as colonial
powers brought cacao to tropical regions around the globe, attempts were made
to grow it on large plantations, rather than as a tree more integrated into
the forest. These attempts failed almost universally because of disease,
rapid exhaustion of the soil, political upheaval, or lack of properly
skilled labor to produce cacao of reasonable quality. History has shown
that much more successful have been small, most often family-run, farms
of between eight and fifteen acres. Today these farms constitute
approximately 80%–90% of cacao cultivation worldwide, the remaining
10–15% being made up of plantations of usually 100 acres or less.
