Ecuadorian Cacao and Chocolate

Cacao

Agricultural region

Ecuador grows CACAO NACIONAL, the aromatic variety marketed as ARRIBA, and produces the large majority of the world’s fine-flavour cacao. ⚠ THE ARCHAEOLOGY MATTERS AND IS RECENT: excavation at SANTA ANA-LA FLORIDA in Zamora Chinchipe found residues of Theobroma cacao use dated to roughly 5,300 years ago in the MAYO-CHINCHIPE culture — the earliest such evidence yet published, and considerably earlier than Mesoamerican use. That reframes the upper Amazon as a place where cacao was used, and probably domesticated, first; it does not make modern chocolate Ecuadorian, and this system does not overstate it. The cacao boom of 1880-1920 built Guayaquil and ended with witches’-broom disease and the First World War; the CCN-51 hybrid now yields far more and tastes of less, and the tension between the two is the live argument in the industry.

Where in the world

What is recorded

Ecuador produces the large majority of the world supply of fine-flavour cacao, chiefly the Nacional variety marketed as Arriba. The higher-yielding CCN-51 hybrid now occupies a large and growing share of planted area, and the trade-off between yield and flavour is an open commercial dispute rather than a settled fact. documented

Excavation at Santa Ana-La Florida in Zamora Chinchipe recovered residues of Theobroma cacao associated with the Mayo-Chinchipe culture dated to approximately 5,300 years before present — the earliest published evidence of cacao use, and earlier than known Mesoamerican use. This is recorded as the earliest documented use and as support for an upper-Amazonian domestication, not as a settled account of the origin of chocolate. documented

Cacao residues at Santa Ana-La Florida in Zamora Chinchipe, associated with the Mayo-Chinchipe culture — the earliest published evidence of Theobroma cacao use anywhere, and earlier than known Mesoamerican use. documented

The cacao boom — the Gran Cacao — which built Guayaquil and ended with witches’-broom disease and the First World War. documented

Related foodways

This foodway relates to

originates from Ecuadorian Amazon Foodways probable

⚠ The Mayo-Chinchipe evidence from Santa Ana-La Florida places the earliest known cacao use in the upper Amazon of what is now Ecuador. Recorded as the earliest documented use, not as a settled account of domestication.

Recorded as relating to this foodway

related to Central American Cacao documented

⚠ The upper Amazon holds the earliest evidence of cacao USE; Mesoamerica holds the earliest evidence of the cacao DRINK as an institution. Both are recorded and neither is subordinated.