Cocoa Tree | Cocoa Butter

The cocoa tree, in the wild, can grow up to 50 feet tall as an “understory” tree in the shade of towering 200 foot tall hardwoods and other trees. The cocoa tree only grows in humid, tropical climates, with cultivation limited to regions between 20° north and 20° south of the equator.

Cocoa Tree

Cocoa is a delicate and demanding tree requiring temperatures between approximately 24-26° Celsius, abudant and regular rains, and soil rich in potassium , nitrogen and trace elements. Young Cocoa trees are particularly delicate and grows to about 5 meters within 3 years and reaches 8 meters at about ten years. A Cocoa tree normally lives 30 – 40 years.

A Theobroma Cocoa is also a Cocoa Tree. This is a small to about 4–8 m or 15–26 ft tall evergreen tree in the family Sterculiaceae (alternatively Malvaceae), native to the deep tropical region of the Americas. Its seeds are used to make cocoa powder and Chocolate. There are two prominent competing hypotheses about the origins of the domestication of the originally wild Theobroma Cocoa tree.