Thus, many would think that the amount of caffeine in the chocolate may be negligible in terms of arousal. Generally, this is true, however some cacaos are more equal than others: "Tell me what kind of chocolate you eat, and I will tell you how much caffeine you get", provided that the manufacturer’s declaration of the cocoa source is correct.
Very convincingly, the cacao pod’s shape, intimately related to the caffeine content of cocoa beans, exhibits a great variability bracketed between the rustic forastero and the noble creole [see Fig. below]. The round-shaped white criollo beans with a pleasant taste may contain 25 times the caffeine of the flat dark-red forastero beans furnished with astringency. Hence, the chocolate’s ’noblesse’ parallels its caffeine content and thus is easily assessed by analysing the PuAs (Asamoa and Wurziger 1976; Sotelo and Alvarez 1991). A noble chocolate with 70 % Maracaibo cocoa contains 500 to 600 mg caffeine/100 g corresponding to 5 to 6 cups of strong coffee! Don’t worry, you will barely come across such a wonderful chocolate.
Theobroma cacao L.
Overview
In 1958, Richard E. Schultes (1915-2001), the father of Modern Ethnobotany, divided the cocoa plants (Theobroma) into the two genera Theobroma and Herrania (Schultes 1958), with 21 and 15 species, respectively. Nevertheless, in practise all remained 'cocoas', because the Indigenous people living in Central and South America used them for centuries in the same way as we do today with the only on-a-grand-style-cultivated cocoa, Theobroma cacao.
It is most remarkable, that this cultivated species is the only one (among the cocoas) which accumulates the methylxanthines theobromine and caffeine.
The other species belong to the so-called Theacrine Plants, and allocate – instead of methylxanthines – the methyluric acid theacrine and related compounds.
Hence, in the following we focus first on the cultivated Theobroma cacao. Thereafter, the theacrine-containing 'wild cocoas' (including the 'herranias') are presented.
The principal PuA of the cocoa (Theobroma cacao L.) beans - nowadays produced in farms spread allover the tropics - is the almost not-stimulating theobromine.
Theobroma L. & Herrania Goudot
The 'Caffeines'
The
Caffeine Plants
