Nacional (cocoa bean) facts for kids

The Nacional is a very special kind of cocoa bean. It is found in places like Ecuador and Peru in South America. For a while, some experts thought this bean had completely disappeared.

Pure Nacional beans are quite rare. This is because most Nacional plants have mixed with other cocoa types over time. The Nacional cocoa from Ecuador has a very old history. Its family tree goes back 5,300 years! This makes it one of the first cocoa trees ever grown by people.

In the 1700s and 1800s, Nacional cocoa was very popular. Chocolate makers in Europe loved it. They said it had a wonderful flowery smell and a rich, complex taste. This was a great time for Ecuadorian cocoa. But it ended suddenly in 1916. A plant disease called "Witches' Broom" badly damaged Nacional cocoa trees across the country.

After the disease, new types of cocoa were brought into Ecuador starting in the 1930s. This caused the Nacional cocoa to mix with other kinds. By the early 2000s, most people believed that pure Nacional cocoa no longer existed.

Finding the Lost Cocoa

In 2009, Ecuador’s agricultural research institute, INIAP, collected DNA samples from cocoa trees. They tested 11,000 samples from all over Ecuador. Only six of these trees were found to be 100% pure Nacional cocoa. That's a tiny number, less than one percent of the trees they checked!

A Big Discovery

In 2013, something amazing happened. A company called To'ak Chocolate found groves of very old cocoa trees. These trees were 100 to 120 years old! They were in a valley called Piedra de Plata. This valley is in the mountains of the Manabi province in Ecuador. This area is famous for growing "Arriba" cocoa.

With help from the Heirloom Cacao Preservation fund (HCP), To'ak tested these old trees. Freddy Amores, the director of INIAP, and Dr. Lyndel Meinhardt from the USDA-ARS also helped. They took DNA samples from a small group of these trees.

Proving Purity

They tested sixteen of the old trees. Nine of them turned out to be pure Nacional cocoa! DNA analysis confirmed that these beans were truly pure Nacional. This discovery brought the total number of DNA-verified pure Nacional trees in Ecuador to fifteen. This was a huge step in bringing back this special cocoa bean.

See also

In Spanish: Nacional (cacao) para niños