Criollo, Trinitario, Forastero, Nacional and CCN-51: the cacao types explained

Criollo, Forastero and Trinitario are the three traditional names for cacao, and Nacional and CCN-51 are the two other names you will meet most on chocolate wrappers. Geneticists now sort cacao into ten groups instead of three. A 2008 study led by Juan Carlos Motamayor genotyped 1,241 trees and found ten genetic clusters, which it named Marañón, Curaray, Criollo, Iquitos, Nanay, Contamana, Amelonado, Purús, Nacional and Guiana. The old names still matter, because farmers, makers and the trade use them every day.

The five cacao names on most wrappers. Only Criollo and Nacional are genetic groups in the 2008 study, and CCN-51 is a single modern clone.

Name	What it is	Where it comes from	Pod and fresh bean	How it is usually described	How common
Criollo	One of the ten genetic clusters, and the original domesticated cacao	Central America and Mexico, with prized old plantings in Venezuela	Long, warty, pointed pods, often red-blushed. Beans paler than most, some white or pink	Low bitterness, nut, caramel, fine acidity	Rare. ICCO says few or no pure Criollo trees remain
Forastero	An old catch-all for Amazonian cacao, now split into several clusters	The Amazon basin, with Amelonado planted across West Africa and Brazil	Round or ovoid, smoother pods that ripen yellow. Dark violet beans	Strong basic cocoa, earthy, can be bitter	Most of the world's cacao
Trinitario	Criollo crossed with Amazonian cacao	Trinidad, after a disaster in 1727	Mixed. Pods and beans vary widely	Highly variable, often fruity and acidic	ICCO says much fine-flavor cocoa comes from Criollo or Trinitario trees
Nacional	One of the ten genetic clusters	Ecuador, on both sides of the Andes, and Peru's Marañón	Purple and white beans in the rare pure trees found in Peru	Floral, called Arriba in Ecuador	Shrinking as farms replant
CCN-51	A single bred clone	Naranjal, Ecuador, from the 1960s	Large pods, heavy beans	Bulk cacao, often called flat and astringent	About 70 percent of Ecuador's cacao area in 2018

Criollo, the rare original

Criollo is the name most people mean when they say rare cacao. The 2008 study found that only trees from the Criollo cluster grow in the primary forests of Central America, while all ten clusters are found in South America. The C-spot atlas describes Criollo pods as warty and pointed with a red blush, with fewer seeds than other cacao, usually 30 to 40. It says the chocolate tends toward nut, caramel and gentle fruit with little bitterness, and that the trees are delicate and prone to disease.

That delicacy is why it is scarce. The International Cocoa Organization (ICCO) says Criollo dominated the market until the middle of the 18th century, and that few if any pure Criollo trees remain today. Porcelana, a pale-seeded cultivar grown mostly in small fields south of Lake Maracaibo in Venezuela, is the best known of the near-pure Criollos still sold.

Forastero, most of the world's cacao

Forastero means foreigner in Spanish, and it was long used for almost any cacao that was not Criollo. ICCO describes it as a large group of cultivated, semi-wild and wild populations, and says Amelonado is the most widely planted, especially in Brazil and West Africa. West Africa grows about 70 percent of the world's cocoa, according to the ICCO, so Amelonado and its hybrids sit behind most of the chocolate people eat.

Amelonado is named for its round, melon-like pod. C-spot describes its beans as dark violet and its flavor as full-bodied basic cocoa, coffee, wood and spice, bold but not complex. The 2008 study is the reason the word Forastero now carries less weight. It showed that what had been lumped together as Forastero holds several distinct groups, from Iquitos and Nanay to Guiana and Amelonado.

Trinitario, born in Trinidad

Trinitario is a hybrid of Criollo and Amazonian cacao, and its name points to where it began. A University of the West Indies account says Trinidad's Criollo was destroyed in 1727 by what history records as a blast, and that Forastero was later brought in through Venezuela. The survivors crossed with the newcomers, and the hybrids took the island's name. The C-spot atlas adds that the word Trinitario only began circulating around 1940, and that most Trinitario trees trace to three main parents.

Trinidad still keeps the world's reference collection. The International Cocoa Genebank at the University of the West Indies holds about 2,300 accessions, according to the same university account. In the bar, Trinitario is hard to pin down, because a cross can lean either way. C-spot calls its flavor highly variable and often notes acidic red fruit like sour cherry.

Nacional, Ecuador's floral cacao

Nacional is Ecuador's native cacao, and its floral aroma made the country famous. In Ecuador the chocolate from it is often sold as Arriba, after the upriver Guayas basin. A 2009 piece on The Chocolate Life describes the Arriba profile as floral and deep with little bitterness, and warns that it is being lost. Nacional is more vulnerable to the diseases witches' broom and frosty pod. Much of Ecuador's old Nacional has since been replaced, lately by CCN-51.

For decades people assumed pure Nacional was gone. Then in 2011 a report on the rediscovery described how Dan Pearson and Brian Horsley of Marañón Chocolate found pods with white and purple beans in Peru's Marañón canyon. The US Department of Agriculture's genetics lab confirmed that pure Nacional had survived there. The beans became the Fortunato No. 4 chocolate, named for the farmer on whose land they were found, though accounts of the name differ.

CCN-51, the high-yield clone

CCN-51 is a single clone bred in Ecuador for yield and disease tolerance, and it divides the craft chocolate world. The name stands for Colección Castro Naranjal. A 2022 review in PeerJ says Homero Castro Zurita developed it in Naranjal after witches' broom hit Ecuador around 1960, from a cross of IMC-67, ICS-95 and an Amazonian tree called Canelo. Commercial planting began in 1985. The review gives yields of 1,300 to 1,800 kg per hectare and says CCN-51 covered about 70 percent of Ecuador's cacao area in 2018 and supplied 54 percent of Peru's production.

The same review notes that ICCO treats CCN-51 as bulk cacao, lacking the fine-flavor profile of Nacional. C-spot's tasting notes are blunter and list weak cocoa, wood shavings and an astringent, acidic edge. Some makers still work with it. For a farmer, though, a tree that bears heavily and survives disease can mean a living, which is why it spreads.

What fine flavor on a label means

Fine flavor cocoa is a trade category set by country, and it says more about origin than about a single bar. ICCO defines it as cocoa with a complex sensory profile, shaped by genetics, place, farming and post-harvest work. An expert panel rates what share of each country's exports qualifies. The latest list, adopted in April 2024, gives Ecuador and Peru 75 percent, the Dominican Republic 60 percent, and Madagascar, Trinidad and Tobago and Jamaica 100 percent.

ICCO puts fine flavor at about 12 percent of world cocoa bean exports. Its own growing guide gives a lower figure of just under 5 percent of production, so the share depends on how it is counted. Groups like the Heirloom Cacao Preservation Fund go further, with expert evaluations of individual growers' cacao for exceptional flavor and cultural value. To see how the bean becomes a bar after all this, read what is inside a cacao pod and how cacao is fermented and dried.

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