The Cocoa Corner

How well do you know your favorite chocolate? Whether you've been a devoted Cailler fan for years or you're just discovering what makes Swiss chocolate so extraordinary, the world of cocoa is full of surprising stories, staggering numbers, and beautiful quirks that most people never learn.

From Aztec emperors to Swiss mountain dairies, from a centuries-old spelling mistake to chocolate that melts right on your tongue, here are some of our favorite facts about cocoa and the brand that got us hooked: Cailler of Switzerland.

"Food of the Gods"

The scientific name of the cacao tree is Theobroma cacao, meaning "food of the gods" in Greek — a name given by botanist Carolus Linnaeus, the father of plant taxonomy. It is a title the ancient Maya and Aztecs would certainly have agreed with, and one that still feels fitting when you unwrap a Cailler chocolate.

It Takes 400 Beans to Make One Pound

Each cacao tree produces around 2,500 beans per year, and it takes approximately 400 of those beans to make just one pound of chocolate. Each tree yields only about 6 pounds of chocolate annually, which makes quality cacao a genuinely precious resource. Cailler works with carefully selected farms to make sure the beans they use are actually worth using.

A Spelling Mistake That Stuck

The word "cocoa" exists because of an 18th-century English spelling error. When cacao was first being imported to Britain, merchants incorrectly wrote "cocoa" — and the mistake has been with us for over 300 years. Whether you call it cocoa, cacao, or just chocolate, Cailler has been mastering it since 1819.

Pods Grow from the Trunk

The cacao tree is cauliflorous — meaning its pods grow directly from the trunk and main branches, not the tips. This unusual habit means the heavy fruit is supported by the strongest parts of the tree. Each pod takes five to six months to ripen, and of the thousands of tiny flowers a cacao tree produces annually, only 3–10% are ever successfully pollinated — primarily by tiny midges.

Three Varieties Behind Your Chocolate

There are three primary varieties of cacao used in chocolate. Forastero makes up roughly 80–90% of the world's supply, valued for its robust flavor and resilience. Criollo is the rarest and most prized, with complex and nuanced flavors, but it's extremely susceptible to disease. Trinitario is a hybrid of the two, balancing quality with agricultural hardiness. Cailler's use of Ecuadorian fine-flavor cacao draws from the aromatic Criollo and Trinitario traditions, which is a big part of what makes their chocolate taste the way it does.