Le cacao, richesse des pays pauvres

Abstract

Cocoa, The Wealth of Poor Countries. The cocoa tree is a tree of the wet tropical forest that originated in the western part of Amazonia. Found as far as southern Mexico, it has played an important role in the Aztec civilization. Its grains were used as money and, reduced to powder form, they furnished the beverage chocolate at ceremonies. During the XVIth century, the Spanish conquerors of Mexico softened the bitterness of it by adding sugar, and chocolate became fashionable at the Spanish court and, during the reign of Louis XIV, at the French court. Venezuela is the principal producer of cocoa thanks to new plantations of the cocoa tree. The big surge in the growth of chocolate use occured in the XlXth Century because chocolate, used more and more in the form of a solid, became an element of every day consumption. The fabrication of it was perfected, in particular, in Holland, Switzerland (milk chocolate) and in France. To meet increasing demand, plantations were created in Africa, and today Ghana, Ivory Coast and Nigeria are the main producers. In South America, however, Brazil and Ecuador have also developed enormous plantations.