Cocoa bean

Top Cocoa Beans producers in 2013
(million metric tons)
Ivory Coast	1.448
Ghana	0.835
Indonesia	0.777
Nigeria	0.367
Cameroon	0.275
Brazil	0.256
Ecuador	0.128
Mexico	0.082
Peru	0.071
Dominican Republic	0.068
World total	4.585
Source: UN Food & Agriculture Organisation (FAO)[2]

The cocoa bean, also cacao bean or simply cocoa (/ˈkoʊ.koʊ/) or cacao (/kəˈkaʊ/), is the dried and fully fermented fatty seed of Theobroma cacao, from which cocoa solids and cocoa butter can be extracted. The "beans" are the basis of chocolate, as well as Mesoamerican foods, such as mole and tejate.

The word "cocoa" derives from the Spanish word cacao, derived from the Nahuatl word cacahuatl. The Nahuatl word, in turn, ultimately derives from the reconstructed Proto Mije-Sokean word *kakaw~*kakawa.

Cocoa can also refer to:

The cacao tree is native to the Americas. It originated in Central America as well as parts of Mexico. Originally over 5000 years ago, consumed by pre-Columbian cultures along the Yucatán including the Mayans, and as far back as Olmeca civilization in spiritual ceremonies. It can be found as well in the foothills of the Andes in the Amazon and Orinoco basins of South America, current-day Colombia and Venezuela. Today examples of wild cacao still can be found there. However, it may have had a larger range in the past, evidence for which may be obscured because of its cultivation in these areas long before, as well as after, the Spanish arrived. New chemical analyses of residues extracted from pottery excavated at an archaeological site at Puerto Escondido in Honduras indicate cocoa products were first consumed there between 1400 and 1500 BC. The new evidence also indicates that, long before the flavor of the cacao seed (or bean) became popular, the sweet pulp of the chocolate fruit, used in making a fermented (5% alcohol) beverage, first drew attention to the plant in the Americas. The cocoa bean was a common currency throughout Mesoamerica before the Spanish conquest.

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