Cocoa was known as chcoclatl the royal beverage of the King Montezuma during the Mayan period.
It also has a medicinal effect and was so famous and high prices that it was once used as money and for tax payment in Mexico.
Dried coca beans are usually processed into coca butter, which contains fat between 56% and 58% made up of a mixture of triglycerides.
A typical cocoa butter from West Africa is composed of the following fatty acids; palmitic, 25.3%; stearic, 36.6% oleic, 33.3%; linoleic 2.8% and other fatty acids 2.9%.
Cocoa butter with this composition is good for making chocolate and has favorable hardness and a melting point of body temperature.
Most chocolate manufacturers require that cocoa beans can be processed into good chocolate with good flavor.
Such quality depends very much on the variety of tree and the method of postharvest handling, such as fermentation and drying.
Theobroma cacao originated from jungle of the Amazon in Brazil or the area between 18 degree north and 15 degree south.
Theobroma cacao consists of two sub species: the Cacao, subspecies known as the Criollo, which can be found in Central ad South America and spharocarpum, which is also called the Forastero.
The world producers of cocoa are on the African continent, in Latin America and in Asia.
Cocoa in general
