History of chocolate in Spain In modern Spain, traces of the history of the drink can be seen in the chocolate companies, the chocolate shops and museums. The [Mesoamerican] origin of the cacao tree (to which Linnaeus gave the scientific name Theobroma cacao in 1753) is disputed by modern botanical historians since there are different hypotheses about the region from which it comes. Thus, some theories point to the Amazon region; however, it is estimated that the plant also grew in the wild in other parts of Americas, including the plains of the Orinoco Basin. It is very likely that the Olmecs knew the cacao
Theobroma cacao there were two foci for domestication, one in the Lacandon Jungle area of Mexico and another in lowland South America. More recent studies of patterns of DNA diversity, however, suggest that this is not the case. One study sampled 1241 trees and classified them into 10 distinct genetic clusters. This study also identified areas, for example around Iquitos in modern Peru and Ecuador, where representatives of several genetic clusters originated more than 5000 years ago, leading to development of the variety, Nacional cocoa bean. This result suggests that this is where "T. cacao" was originally domesticated, probably for the pulp