Forastero
Forastero cocoa is bulk cocoa. In world cocoa market, a strict distinction is made between bulk cocoa (Forastero) and fine flavour cocoa (Trinitario, Arriba Nacional and Criollo). The spread of high-yielding, low-maintenance bulk cocoa varieties, such as the Forastero variety »CCN 51«, is increasingly threatening the cultivation of original fine or flavour cocoas in the regions of origin along the equator.
Cocoa from the Forastero group comes from Amazonia. In the trade, Forastero cocoa is actually only understood as bulk cocoa from West Africa (the Ivory Coast, Ghana, Nigeria or Cameroon). This bulk cocoa comes from the eastern regions of Amazonia ( therefore also called "Lower Amazon Forastero"), mainly Brazil. From there the very productive and robust Forasteros were shipped to West Africa from 1822 onwards. They are the basis for over 70 percent of today's world harvest.
Among cocoa experts, however, the group of Forastero cocoa is divided into further groups and includes wild forms, but these are not traded. Cocoa from the western regions and upper Amazon rivers and e.g. Orinocos are called "Upper Amazon Forasteros" and cocoa from the lower, eastern river regions is called "Lower Amazon Forasteros". They differ clearly: Already 3000 years ago, few fruits of the "Upper Amazon Forasteros" were brought over the Andes as far as up to Mexico. Through breeding, the now independent fine flavour cocoa group of Criollo cocoas has developed from this.
Much later, about 500 years ago, other fruits were spread to Ecuador and there the Nacional group with fine flavour cocoa developed. All the original forms of cocoa can be found in the upper reaches of the Amazonian rivers.