São Tomé and Príncipe
Two small Atlantic islands that were once the largest cacao producer in the world, and where the modern crop grows through the ruins of the plantations that made them so.
São Tomé and Príncipe was, briefly in the early twentieth century, the world's leading cacao exporter. The plantation system that achieved that was worked by contracted labourers under conditions that became the subject of an international scandal and a British trade boycott — one of the earliest cases of a consumer campaign directed at a supply chain, and a direct ancestor of modern sourcing scrutiny.
Production today is small. The islands' cacao is grown on and around the old estates, some of which have been revived for speciality production, and the crop includes Amelonado material descended from the original plantings. The volume is negligible by world standards and the historical significance is not.
- Also known as
- Sao Tome
- Flavour families
- earthy, nutty, fruity
- Named growing regions
- Príncipe(recorded in the catalogue; the regional index is not yet published)
Growing conditions
Volcanic soils and high rainfall on two equatorial islands, with cacao grown from sea level into the hills under shade.
History
Portuguese plantation cacao from the nineteenth century, reaching the top of world production in the early twentieth. Labour conditions on the roças prompted an international campaign and a boycott by British chocolate manufacturers, and output declined through the twentieth century after independence and the breakup of the estate system.
Production scale
A very small producer today, having been the largest in the world around 1905.
The historical peak is well attested; ChocolateHQ holds no verified current figure.
Flavour character
Speciality lots are often described as earthy and full-bodied with a modest fruit edge.
Based on descriptions of a small revived speciality output rather than of the islands' production generally.
Related
Varieties grown
- AmelonadoThe islands were the staging post that carried Amelonado from Bahia to the West African mainland, and old plantings survive.
Covered in
- African cacaoThe small-volume fine-flavour exception in the region.
Growing regions
- PríncipeThe smaller of the two islands of São Tomé and Príncipe, where cacao grows on and around the ruins of the roças — the plantation estates whose labour conditions prompted an international boycott in the early twentieth century.
History and culture
- Cacao crosses the AtlanticThe islands' plantation labour conditions prompted an early twentieth-century consumer boycott — a direct ancestor of modern supply-chain scrutiny.
- The ethical chocolate movementWhere the early twentieth-century boycott happened, and the first case of consumer pressure on a cocoa supply chain.
- British chocolate historyWhere the plantation labour controversy took place.
Sources
- ChocolateHQ editorial synthesis — ChocolateHQ(citation identity confirmed; passage not re-read)
- Quarterly Bulletin of Cocoa Statistics — International Cocoa Organization (ICCO)(citation identity confirmed; passage not re-read)