The cacao trees mature at five years and begin to flower on the trunk. The flowers are pollinated by midges, a small fly.

"We didn't get a single drop of rain." Farmers in top cocoa-producing country sound alarm over this year's crop: 'It's not ...

This rare variety of chocolate was an important staple in Aztec society, even being used as currency. Today, it's a rare but ...

Cocoa beans are the vital ingredient in chocolate. The world's cocoa – harvested from the Theobroma cacao tree, native to the Amazon rainforest - is now mostly produced in West African countries ...

home to 3,500 trees, producing about 70,000 kilos of cacao beans each year. Soriano’s Royal Cacao Farm and Training and Assessment Center had been certified as among the organic farms in the ...

Cacao beans held great prominence in the daily lives of Mesoamerican Indians. According to the Mayan and Mexica religions, cacao had divine origins as the god Quetzalcoatl discovered cacao.

To them, cacao beans were more valuable than gold. Next time someone says money doesn’t grow on trees, you’ll know what to tell them. The Aztec word for the bitter drink is ‘xocolatl ...