Cacao Nibs, Chocolate, and Beans

Humanity has had a long relationship with the cacao plant or Theobroma Cacao on which the cacao beans grow that chocolate is made from. The plant is a large, evergreen tree native to the Amazon basin in South America where it prefers to grow at lower elevations and under a heavy rainforest canopy. The seeds are known as cacao beans and 20 to 60 of them grow encased in large pods.