Scientists make discovery deep in rainforest that could save chocolate from becoming scarce: 'Might allow us to produce drought-tolerant or disease-resistant cacao ... to theobroma cacao, ...

Today, cacao plants are cultivated in rainforest habitats throughout the tropics. Cacao trees grow and bear fruit in the region around the equator. They thrive on tropical rains and partial shade.

"We believe that Theobroma cacao is the first early domesticated tropical tree fruit crop to be sequenced," said Guiltinan. "Interestingly, only 20 percent of the genome was made up of ...

Here we show for the first time that the source of chocolate, Theobroma cacao, is remarkably old for an Amazonian plant species," says Dr James Richardson, a tropical botanist at the Royal Botanic ...

However in his new tropical garden he doesn’t bother with the seasonal cold-climate food plants of kale and broccoli, and instead grows perennial ones. His favourites include: ...

You can thank these Theobroma cacao flowers for your brownie sundae. Courtesy of Flickr user Eric Hunt. The flowers of the cacao tree start opening in the late afternoon. Throughout the night, the ...

And then the seeds are solid and firm, but chewy and a bit mealy — and with an unmistakable bitter chocolate taste, a bit too bitter for some of us.