José Rubens Pirani

1 Introduction Cacao (Theobroma cacao L., Malvaceae) is a culturally and economically significant tree crop. While cacao serves as a fundamental ingredient in various products, its primary use is in chocolate manufacturing, a market that exceeded US$100 billion in retail value in 2021 (Bermudez et al. 2022). Revered as a sacred beverage in ancient Mesoamerica, cacao has shaped trade, culture, and human history for millennia, inspiring Linnaeus to name it as the “food of the Gods” (Schultes 1984).