One of chocolate’s most popular stories is that Criollo is the cultivated one, Forastero the wild one and Trinitario is their love child.
This is bunkum.
Criollo is just one of 18 or more distinct cultivars Theobroma cacao has. Giff Laube has painstakingly tracked down many criollo from backyards or neglected plots of land and his orchard in Nicaragua is growing DNA confirmed trees producing beans with a mild and really interesting nutty flavour (but no nuts are in there for those of you with nut allergies).
