ABSTRACT
Cocoa (Theobroma cacao L.) is a native species of tropical humid forests on the lower eastern equato rial slopes of the Andes in South America. Allen (1987) reported the centre of genetic diversity of T. cacao to be the Amazon Basin region of South America and all the 37 collecting expeditions listed by End, Wadsworth, and Hadley (1990) to seek germplasm of wild cacao were to the Amazon Basin region. The word cacao is derived from the Olmec and the subsequent Mayan languages (Kakaw) and the chocolate-related term cacahuatl is Nahuatl (Aztec language) derived from Olmec/Mayan etymology (Dillinger et al. 2000). Cocoa was considered divine in origin, and in 1737 the Swedish botanist Carolus Linneaus named the cocoa tree Theobroma cacao, now its official botanical name, from the Greek word ambrosia (Alvim 1984; Anon 2008). Based on archaeological information, Purdy and Schmidt (1996) reported that the Mayans cultivated cocoa 2,000-4,000 years before Spanish contact. It is recorded that cocoa was domesticated and con sumed for the first time by the Maya and Aztecs. The Maya, Olmec, Toltec and Aztecs used the beans of cocoa as both currency and as the base for a bitter drink (Purdy and Schmidt 1996; Nair 2010; Anon 2011).
