Which tree's fruit is used to make chocolate?

Which tree's fruit is used to make chocolate? The cacao tree (Theobroma cacao) produces the fruit whose seeds are used to make chocolate.

Its fruit is called a cacao pod. Each pod contains roughly 20 to 60 seeds, commonly called cocoa beans once they have been fermented and dried, surrounded by a sweet white pulp. The seeds contain about 40% to 50% fat, much of it cocoa butter, which is essential to chocolate’s texture.

Chocolate production involves harvesting the pods, removing and fermenting the seeds, drying them, roasting them, and processing them into cocoa solids, cocoa butter, or chocolate liquor. The tree is native to the tropical Americas and has a long history in Mesoamerica, where cacao beverages were consumed before European contact.

A common mistake is to say that chocolate comes from the pod’s sweet pulp or from the tree’s wood. The commercially important ingredient is the seed. “Cacao” and “cocoa” are often used interchangeably, although cacao usually refers to the plant and beans before or during processing, while cocoa commonly describes processed products.