I have the luxury to live and produce in a country that produces a large chunk of the variety of cacao that exists on our planet. Make no mistake, sourcing cocoa beans isn’t an easy task wherever you are! Working with farmers is intrinsically different than going through a trader and requires a totally different approach and a lot of time and patience.

This article will focus on basic knowledge about genetics and variëty. It’s by no means complete but it’s my attempt to summarize and make information digestible and useful.

Sourcing cacao beans

Did you know? 

Cacao grows on trees, these trees grow fruits (pods) and these pods contain a white fruit-flesh. Inside the fruit are seeds: the cacao beans 🙂 The same thing goes for coffee beans, makes no sense, but then neither do most of the things we do, but that would lead me too far… back to cacao beans seeds!

About semantics

When you start reading about this, the first thing you’ll notice is that there are many different names for the same thing. This, of course, doesn’t help to shed light on this dark matter.

In a moment we’ll talk about semantics. However, I’d like to take just one step back and tell you about the wider family.

The theobroma genus

When we say “cacao” we mean “Theobroma Cacao”. In other words: the cacao species of the Theobroma genus. Please dig into Wikipedia and learn more about the Theobromae tribe. I would just like to mention two other species that I love working with:

Theobroma grandiflorum

(un)Commonly known as Copazú or Copaçu. I’ve never encountered this one as a plant or seed, however, I consume Copazú often for its energetic properties. A friend of mine in Iquitos sells it as a frozen paste. I use this in smoothies, juices, and bowls just like I use the more widely known superfood: Acaï. It gives me a nice boost and tastes fantastic combined with mango, pineapple or any citrus juice.

Categorize Cacao (the old way)

Enough about the cousins, let’s look at our T. cacao brothers and sisters…
Traditionally traders categorize cacao in 3 groups:

• Criollo (aka Nativo) These are considered the gourmet cacao group. Generally, people find them finer in taste and the plants themselves are delicate and prone to plagues.
• Forastero (aka Commercial) This is about 85% of all cacao. Considered high yield, with no special flavor. These plants are resistant to many plagues and grow a lot of cacao, fast.
• Trinitario (aka Hybrid) This is a hybrid of the Criollo and Forastero and shows stronger resistance and higher yields than Criollo, but less so than Forastero.

Given this classification you could jump to the conclusion that Criollo is better than Trinitario and Trinitario is better than Forastero. I find this classification to be simplistic, misleading and mainly used in marketing and sales talk without being rooted in reality. 

Moreover, I think it has little or nothing to do with choosing the right beans for making your chocolate. It’s little more than a nice story to tell when selling your product. 

Let’s dig a little deeper and see if we can come up with a model that reflects reality a little clearer.

The 10 genetic clusters of cacao beans

Another point of view is to look at the genetic analysis of cacao worldwide. This is a vast area of science and there is a lot of data to study. In short: there are 10 genetic clusters. Each one named after the places they are most densely encountered:

This is one of the main reasons that I think I love to work with Peruvian cacao: there is so much variety! Besides, it’s energetically and ecologically sane to use local beans.

I strongly feel the genetic view on cacao is way more interesting than just saying it’s Criollo.

So how do we use this to source the right beans?

I find it undesirable to choose a cacao bean only based on genetics.

Cacao plants’ flowers are hermaphrodites, yet the wild species are outcrossing and will form hybrids really quickly.

This is why the genetic clusters are usually geographically bound by natural borders such as mountain ranges. Nowadays people tend to take seeds and plant them elsewhere, which quickly results in more hybrids…

Although science can help in improving consistency once you find a great bean, I don’t think it’s particularly effective in finding it in the first place.

Yet I must say that there are clearly recognizable taste patterns in certain clusters (especially when they actually come from the geographical place they originated from). This means that genetics + location does reveal in a very general way what taste you are more likely to encounter.

How I source cacao for my chocolate

I’ve tasted great chocolate made from a wide variety of the above. I find it hard to make a decision based on names or genetics. This still doesn’t tell me anything about any of the other factors like fermentation, nurturing, terroir, etc. I will talk about all this in future posts. 

My recommendation is to always make a sample batch of chocolate. Choose beans and people you have a good feeling about (based on your knowledge of the entire supply chain). That’s the only true way to incorporate all the variables and find out what the end result may taste like.

Of course, knowledge of genetics amongst other things is useful and helps to narrow it down. 

Tasting the beans may seem like the next best thing if you can’t actually make a batch, but it’s like eating grapes and imagining the wine. The chocolate will be the end result of the infinite variety of flavor… 

Go make chocolate => taste => come back for more 😉

Summary

• Criollo/Trinitario/Forastero: nice sales pitch, little or no evidence to back this up, simplistic and outdated
• 10 genetic clusters: interesting, more realistic and detailed classification. In order to have a general idea about taste profiles, you have to add the geographic variable too.
• Use all of the info above to select samples… and make chocolate. This way you get to know your source, whether it be a trader of a farmer directly, this is always a learning experience and a good idea.

Sources and further reading

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theobroma

https://nature.com/articles/ng.736

https://bmcgenomics.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12864-017-4120-9

https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0003311

https://www.cacaogenomedb.org/main