According to some people heirloom cacao is endowed with a combination of historic, cultural, botanical, geographical, and flavour value. In other words it is a catchall concept that makes marketeers smile. Heirloom cacao radiates quality and flavour, it is exotic and historical at the same time. What is not to love about heirloom cacao?

At Silva, we also love heirloom cacao. However, we don’t say very quickly that a cacao is heirloom. To understand heirloom, you need to understand cacao varieties and cacao cultivars.

Varieties and Cultivars

Cacao comes from the cacao tree – Theobroma cacao, an evergreen tree in the family Malvaceae that is native to the tropical forests of Central and South America. Scientists have been interested in the different cacao varieties under Theobroma cacao, and have discovered several genetically linked clusters. You might recognize some of their names (or all): Maranon, Amelonado, Nacional, Criollo, Iquitos, Contamana, Purus, Guiana, Curaya. These varieties were all found in Central and South America, to which Theobroma cacao is native. Quite likely more varieties will be discovered in the future.

A cultivar – or cultivated variety – is grown with the purpose to cultivate, because of their desirable characteristics. These can be wild varieties (discussed above) or plants created by human intervention (for example, cross breeding).

And now we come to heirloom. Heirloom cacao is a cultivar – meaning it is cultivated by people, who selected it because of its specific traits, which were and still are highly appreciated. Heirloom cacao reproduces via sexual propagation (pollination). And heirloom cacao is ‘old’, meaning it has been around for quite some time. How long is not specified, some say cacao must be cultivated for more than 100 years to be called heirloom, others say it is must be around since World War II. And possibly, others have a different definitions of ‘old’.

Scientists prefer to describe heirloom cacao as cacao from a specific geographical region, which reproduces naturally (pollination by insects), and already exists in the area for several generations.

The quality of heirloom

Is heirloom cacao better than other cacao? It is possible, but actually, there is no correlation between heirloom and quality. Non-heirloom cacao can have excellent genes, and if it is grown and harvested by a skilled farmer and then fermented and dried according to pre-developed protocols, you will end up with excellent cacao. On the other hand, if heirloom cacao is harvested too early or too late, and then under or over fermented, you will get nasty cacao.

Is your cacao heirloom?

Sorry to be so undetermined when it comes to heirloomness of cacao. The lack of clear definitions makes it just difficult to make very clear statements about this subject. Obviously the scientist in us is stronger than the marketer.

If you want to discover whether your cacao is heirloom or not, the answers on the following questions can give you an indication:

1. How many years is the cacao growing in the area it is sourced from?
2. Is the reproduction naturally or is grafting applied?
3. What is the origin of the cultivar?
4. Do you have some information on the genetic linkages of the cacao ?
5. Was there a specific reason why the cultivar has been created?
6. Are the cacao beans locally used?