Theobroma cacao beans, along with other agricultural products, were brought back to Spain at that time, but it seems the beverage made from cacao was introduced to the Spanish court in 1544 by Kekchi Maya nobles brought from the New World to Spain by Dominican friars to meet Prince Philip. Within a century, chocolate had spread to France, England and elsewhere in Western Europe. Demand for this beverage led the French to establish cacao plantations in the Caribbean, while Spain subsequently developed their cacao plantations in their Venezuelan and Philippine colonies (Bloom 1998, Coe 1996). A painting by Dutch Golden Age artist
Cacao necrosis virus translucent veinal necrosis of leaves, necrotic or chlorotic spots of leaves, defoliation, and dieback of shoots that rarely leads to seedling death if infected by the Ghanaian isolate. A following recovery phase of live plants shows limited leaf symptoms. The virus has been transmitted to numerous diagnostically susceptible host species including "Beta vulgaris", "Chenopodium amaranticolor", "Chenopodium quinoa", "Cucumis sativus", "Glycine max", "Gomphrena globosa", "Nicotiana clevelandii", "Nicotiana glutinosa", "Nicotiana tabacum", "Petunia × hybrida", "Phaseolus vulgaris", "Tetragonia tetragonioides", "Theobroma cacao", and "Vigna unguiculata", but these plants are not infected in nature. The strain used to infect these species was the Ghanian isolate.