Our team of FLAAR is assisted by several Q’eqchi’ Mayan-speaking people in Alta Verapaz and Peten. These “plant scouts” go out in their areas to help us find plants which are on our “would really like to find and photograph list.”
About 7 months ago we found cacao pods for sale by a Q’eqchi’ grandmother in Senahu, Alta Verapaz. These cacao pods had a curved end to them. Unfortunately we do not have her contact info nor do we know where she harvested these atypical pods. So we have asked our plant scouts to see if they can find trees with “curved, pointed” cacao pods.
While six of us from FLAAR Reports were doing research on advanced digital imaging in Shanghai, one of our plant scouts said he found a tree filled with curved cacao pods. This is a large tall tree, but not a Theobroma bicolor (so not pataxte, balamte). This is clearly Theobroma cacao, and we hope specialists in cacao DNA can figure out why these pods have a curved end.
Mayan cacao chocolate curved point pod. Peten, Guatemala
We have also found Theobroma angustifolium in the Costa Sur, but most people suggest this came from Costa Rica by the Spaniards, very quickly after the conquest of Guatemala and Mexico. The curved-ended cacao is absolutely not Theobroma angustifolium.
Posted March 16, 2017
