What is the scientific name of cacao tree?
Theobroma sativum (Aubl.) Lign. & Bey Theobroma cacao, also called the cacao tree and the cocoa tree, is a small (4–8 m (13–26 ft) tall) evergreen tree in the family Malvaceae. Its seeds, cocoa beans, are used to make chocolate liquor, cocoa solids, cocoa butter and chocolate.
What is the classification of cocoa?
Similarly, you may ask, what is cocoa classified? Theobroma cacao, also called the cacao tree and the cocoa tree, is a small (4–8 m (13–26 ft) tall) evergreen tree in the family Malvaceae, native to the deep tropical regions of Mesoamerica. Also Know, why was chocolate called Theobroma cacao?
What is the origin of the word cacao?
The generic name is derived from the Greek for "food of the gods"; from θεός ( theos ), meaning 'god', and βρῶμα ( broma ), meaning 'food'. The specific name cacao is the Hispanization of the name of the plant in indigenous Mesoamerican languages.
What is another name for Theobroma cacao?
Theobroma cacao, also called the cacao tree and the cocoa tree, is a small (4–8 m (13–26 ft) tall) evergreen tree in the family Malvaceae, native to the deep tropical regions of Mesoamerica. Also Know, why was chocolate called Theobroma cacao?
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What is the family name for cocoa?
MallowsCacao tree / FamilyMalvaceae, or the mallows, is a family of flowering plants estimated to contain 244 genera with 4225 known species. Well-known members of economic importance include okra, cotton, cacao and durian. There are also some genera containing familiar ornamentals, such as Alcea, Malva and Lavatera, as well as Tilia. Wikipedia
What is cocoa called in English?
British Dictionary definitions for cacao cacao. / (kəˈkɑːəʊ, -ˈkeɪəʊ) / noun. a small tropical American evergreen tree, Theobroma cacao, having yellowish flowers and reddish-brown seed pods from which cocoa and chocolate are prepared: family Sterculiaceae. cacao bean another name for cocoa bean.
Is it called cacao or cocoa?
In one sense, the two words mean the same thing as "cocoa" is the English adaptation of the word "cacao." However, there are also important distinctions between the two. While cacao refers to cacao beans that have not been roasted, what is called cocoa is made of beans have been roasted.
What is another word for cocoa?
In this page you can discover 21 synonyms, antonyms, idiomatic expressions, and related words for cocoa, like: chocolate, hot-chocolate, associated word: theobromine, bean, beverage, hot, cashew, drinking chocolate, cacao, brown and sugar-cane.
Is cocoa a chocolate?
Cocoa is by no means a lesser product than chocolate. On the contrary, it's a purer form of chocolate. Chocolate has two main components—cocoa solids (where the flavor comes from) and cocoa butter (where the rich texture comes from). Cocoa powder has very little cocoa butter in it; it's mainly cocoa solids.
Is cocoa pronounced Coco?
Cocoa pronunciation: “co-co,” just like in “coconut,” because the “a” is silent in English.
Is Coco the same as cocoa?
Bean-to-bar chocolatiers, who make chocolate from scratch starting with fermented, dried beans, only use the word cacao for the pod and beans before they're fermented. After fermentation, they call them cocoa beans. Given this variation in usage of terms, it's helpful to understand how cacao beans are processed.
Is cocoa and Coca the same?
Cocoa refers to a powder made from cacao beans, or to a drink made with this powder. Coca refers to plants that are used to make cocaine.
Overview
Theobroma cacao, also called the cacao tree and the cocoa tree, is a small (4–8 m (13–26 ft) tall) evergreen tree in the family Malvaceae. Its seeds, cocoa beans, are used to make chocolate liquor, cocoa solids, cocoa butter and chocolate. The largest producer of cocoa beans in 2018 was Ivory Coast, with 37% of the world total.
Description
Leaves are alternate, entire, unlobed, 10–40 cm (4–16 in) long and 5–20 cm (2–8 in) broad.
The flowers are produced in clusters directly on the trunk and older branches; this is known as cauliflory. The flowers are small, 1–2 cm (3⁄8–13⁄16 in) diameter, with pink calyx. The floral formula, used to represent the structure of a flower using numbers, is ✶ K5 C5 A(5°+5 ) G(5). While many of the world's flowers are pollinated by bees (Hymenoptera) or butterflies/moths (Lepidoptera), …
Taxonomy and nomenclature
Cacao (Theobroma cacao) belongs to the genus Theobroma classified under the subfamily Byttnerioideae of the mallow family Malvaceae. Cacao is one of 17 species of Theobroma.
In 2008, researchers proposed a new classification based upon morphological, geographic, and genomic criteria: 10 groups have been named according to their geographic origin or the traditional cultivar name. These groups are: Amelonado, Criollo, Nacional, Contamana, Curaray, …
Distribution and domestication
T. cacao is widely distributed from southeastern Mexico to the Amazon basin. There were originally two hypotheses about its domestication; one said that there were two foci for domestication, one in the Lacandon Jungle area of Mexico and another in lowland South America. More recent studies of patterns of DNA diversity, however, suggest that this is not the case. One study sampled 1241 trees and classified them into 10 distinct genetic clusters. This study also identified areas, for e…
Cultivation
In 2016, cocoa beans were cultivated on roughly 10,196,725 hectares (25,196,660 acres) worldwide. Cocoa beans are grown by large agroindustrial plantations and small producers, the bulk of production coming from millions of farmers with small plots. A tree begins to bear when it is four or five years old. A mature tree may have 6,000 flowers in a year, yet only about 20 pods. About 1,200 seeds (40 pods) are required to produce 1 kg (2.2 lb) of cocoa paste.
Conservation
The pests and diseases to which cacao is subject, along with climate change, mean that new varieties will be needed to respond to these challenges. Breeders rely on the genetic diversity conserved in field genebanks to create new varieties, because cacao has recalcitrant seeds that cannot be stored in a conventional genebank. In an effort to improve the diversity available to breeders, and ensure the future of the field genebanks, experts have drawn up A Global Strategy …
Genome
The genome of T. cacao is diploid, its size is 430 Mbp, and it comprises 10 chromosome pairs (2n=2x=20). In September 2010, a team of scientists announced a draft sequence of the cacao genome (Matina1-6 genotype). In a second, unrelated project, the International Cocoa Genome Sequencing Consortium-ICGS, co-ordinated by CIRAD, first published in December 2010 (online, paper publication in January 2011), the sequence of the cacao genome, of the Criollo cacao (of …
History of cultivation
Cultivation, use, and cultural elaboration of cacao were early and extensive in Mesoamerica. Ceramic vessels with residues from the preparation of cacao beverages have been found at archaeological sites dating back to the Early Formative (1900–900 BC) period. For example, one such vessel found at an Olmec archaeological site on the Gulf Coast of Veracruz, Mexico dates cacao's preparation by pre-Olmec peoples as early as 1750 BC. On the Pacific coast of Chiapas, …