Cacao Types

The international cocoa community generally classifies cocoa beans into two broad types, Forastero cocoa and Criollo cocoa.

Forastero or bulk cocoa make up over 95% of the world production, are highly pigmented beans, used in the manufacture of cocoa butter and high volume chocolate lines.

Criollo cocoa is mainly grown in Central and northern South America, has white or pale violet beans that are used to manufacture chocolate of the highest quality.

Trinitario is a hybrid of these two types that originated in Trinidad but is now grown in many locations. It provides specific flavour distinctions in fine chocolate.

Criollo and Trinitario beans are collectively known as 'fine or flavour' cocoa. There are however, exceptions to this generalization such as National cocoa from Ecuador which is a Forastero type classified as fine or flavour.

Another cocoa group is Refractario, which comprises germplasm selected in Ecuador in the 1920s and 1930s. Selections were made of the few survivors among seedlings which had been infected by Witches' Broom disease.