Chocolate lowland climate in the narrow band of latitudes where cacao is grown (20 degrees north and south of the equator), the commercial company Mars, Incorporated and the University of California, Berkeley are conducting genomic research in 2017–18 to improve the survivability of cacao plants in hot climates. Chocolate is made from cocoa beans, the dried and fermented seeds of the cacao tree ("Theobroma cacao"), a small, 4–8 m tall (15–26 ft tall) evergreen tree native to the deep tropical region of the Americas. Recent genetic studies suggest the most common genotype of the plant originated in the Amazon basin and
Theobroma cacao Amelonado, Criollo, Nacional, Contamana, Curaray, Cacao guiana, Iquitos, Marañon, Nanay, and Purús. The generic name is derived from the Greek for "food of the gods"; from θεός ("theos"), meaning "god", and βρῶμα ("broma"), meaning "food". The specific name "cacao" is the Hispanization of the name of the plant in indigenous Mesoamerican languages. The cacao was known as "kakaw" in Tzeltal, K'iche' and Classic Maya; "kagaw" in Sayula Popoluca; and "cacahuatl" in Nahuatl as "bean of the cocoa-tree". "T. cacao" is widely distributed from southeastern Mexico to the Amazon basin. There were originally two hypotheses about its domestication; one said that