A small producer, and the home of CATIE — the research centre whose germplasm collection and breeding programme have shaped cacao planting across Latin America.
Costa Rica's own cacao production is modest, having been badly affected by monilia pod rot from the late 1970s. Its importance to the domain is scientific: the CATIE research centre at Turrialba holds one of the world's major cacao germplasm collections and has run breeding programmes whose selections are planted well beyond Costa Rica.
Commercial growing continues on the Caribbean side around Limón and in the south, with a small speciality and agrotourism sector.
Grown principally on the Caribbean slope around Limón and in the Talamanca region, under shade and high rainfall.
A small producer, significant to the industry mainly through cacao research rather than volume.
Often described as fruity with a nutty base and moderate acidity.
Germplasm collections hold living examples of cacao diversity that commercial planting does not preserve. Breeding programmes draw on them for disease resistance and yield, and the clones that result — CCN-51 among the best known, though it was bred elsewhere — end up planted across continents. A great deal of what the world's cacao is genetically was decided in a handful of research stations.
A claim about a country generalises across thousands of farms and dozens of fermentation protocols. A claim about one of these can be right. Where a region has evidence and depth of its own it has a page; where it does not, it is described here rather than given a thin one.
A Caribbean-slope region of Costa Rica with Bribri and Cabécar indigenous territories where cacao has long cultural use. Production is small, largely organic, and much of it is organised through indigenous-led cooperatives.
High-rainfall Caribbean slope under forest shade, running up towards the Talamanca cordillera.
Often described as fruity with a nutty base and moderate acidity.
Covered here rather than on a page of its own
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