Unveiling the Trio of Cacao Varieties: Criollo, Forastero and Trinitario

By Ben Popple, founder of Mr Popple’s Chocolate · Updated June 2026 · 7 min read

🍫 The 60-second answer

There are traditionally three main cacao varieties: Criollo, the rare and delicate one; Forastero, the hardy workhorse behind most of the world’s chocolate; and Trinitario, a hybrid of the two. It’s a useful starting point, though modern genetics shows the real picture is far richer.

Pick up two bars of dark chocolate at the same percentage and they can taste like completely different foods. A lot of that difference comes down to one thing most wrappers never mention: the variety of cacao inside. Like grapes in wine or apples in a pie, the type of bean shapes the flavour long before anyone starts making chocolate with it.

For most of the last century, cacao has been described as coming in three main varieties. It’s a handy way in, so we’ll start there, then look at why the truth turned out to be more interesting.

Criollo: the rare and delicate one

Criollo is the variety chocolate lovers tend to get excited about, and the one we build our bars around. First cultivated in Central America thousands of years ago, it’s prized for a delicate, complex flavour rather than sheer strength.

Flavour and character

Criollo is low in bitterness and gentle in aroma, with notes of dried fruit, plum, caramel and a soft floral edge. It’s the variety least likely to taste harsh on its own, which is exactly why it suits high-percentage and 100% bars where there’s no sugar to lean on.

Why it’s so scarce

Criollo makes up a small share of the world’s cacao, usually put at under 5% of global production, and pure, unhybridised Criollo is rarer still. The reason is simple economics. The trees are fussy, prone to disease and give low yields, so most growers choose hardier varieties instead. You get a finer bean, but you have to work much harder for it. If you’d like the fuller story, we’ve written about why we choose Criollo cacao for our chocolate.

Forastero: the workhorse of the chocolate world

If Criollo is the prince, Forastero is the labourer who keeps the whole industry standing. The Amelonado subtype alone accounts for the large majority of global cacao, somewhere around 80 to 90%, and it’s what fills most of the chocolate on supermarket shelves.

Why it dominates

Forastero is hardy, high-yielding and far more resistant to disease than Criollo. It grows happily across West Africa, Brazil and Southeast Asia, which makes it the dependable choice for large-scale farming and steady supply. Its flavour is strong, earthy and robust, sometimes frankly bitter, which is part of why so much commercial dark chocolate tastes one-dimensional. There’s nothing wrong with Forastero, it just does a different job.

Trinitario: the best of both

Trinitario is a natural hybrid of Criollo and Forastero that first appeared in Trinidad in the 18th century, after a storm wiped out the island’s Criollo crops and growers replanted with Forastero alongside the survivors. The two crossed, and the result inherited some of Criollo’s flavour and much of Forastero’s toughness.

A practical middle ground

That mix has made Trinitario popular with farmers and makers alike. Its flavour is more interesting than Forastero, carrying fruity and floral notes that shift with the growing conditions, while it’s hardier and more generous in yield than Criollo. It now grows across Venezuela, Ecuador, Cameroon and Papua New Guinea, and turns up in plenty of fine-flavour chocolate.

How the three compare

Property	Criollo	Forastero	Trinitario
Rarity	Rarest (under 5% of world production)	Most common (80-90%)	Uncommon
Flavour	Complex, mild, caramel, dried fruit, floral	Strong, earthy, robust, sometimes bitter	Balanced, fruity, floral, less bitter than Forastero
Aroma	Delicate, rarely bitter	Powerful, less aromatic	More aromatic than Forastero
Bean colour	Often pale, ivory to white	Typically dark, uniform	A mix of pale and dark
Cultivation	Hard to grow, low yield, disease-prone	Hardy, high-yielding, easy to grow	Hardier than Criollo, higher yield, more disease-resistant
Main regions	Central and South America, Caribbean	West Africa, Brazil, Southeast Asia	Trinidad, now widely grown
Typical use	Fine, rare, premium chocolate	Mass-market chocolate	Single-origin bars and quality blends
Bitterness	Low	Can be bitter	Less bitter than Forastero

These are general characteristics. There’s real variation within each variety depending on the specific genetics, the terroir, and how the beans are fermented and dried after harvest.

Beyond the big three cacao varieties: what genetics revealed

Here’s where the tidy three cacao variety story starts to wobble, in a good way. When scientists actually sequenced cacao’s DNA, the neat trio turned out to be a simplification. A landmark genetic study identified at least ten distinct genetic clusters of cacao, not three, each with its own characteristics, most of them tucked away in the upper Amazon where the species first evolved.

It doesn’t make the old names useless. the Criollo, Forastero and Trinitario cacao varieties are still a sensible shorthand, and most of the trade still uses them. It just means the world of cacao flavour is far broader than three boxes suggest, which is rather exciting if you care about taste. The more growers and makers explore that diversity, the more genuinely different chocolate we all get to try.

Why this matters for the chocolate you eat

The variety isn’t the whole story, but it sets the ceiling. A great bean treated badly will still disappoint, and a humble bean treated with care can shine. What the variety does is decide how much flavour is there to work with in the first place, before fermentation, roasting or grinding gets involved.

It’s also why how a bar is made matters just as much as which bean it started from. We keep our cacao raw, never roasting it, and stone-grind it slowly at low temperature, which preserves both the delicate flavours and the natural compounds that high heat tends to flatten. You can read more about why we keep our chocolate raw, or simply browse our range of single-origin Peruvian chocolate bars and taste the difference for yourself.

Cacao’s varieties are worth protecting

Cacao faces real pressure. Diseases like frosty pod rot and witches’ broom can wipe out harvests, and deforestation keeps eroding the wild habitats where cacao’s genetic diversity actually lives. The delicate varieties like Criollo are the most vulnerable of all.

That’s part of why we source from a cooperative growing fine-flavour cacao under the Amazon canopy using agroforestry, where no trees come down to make room for it. Protecting the rarer varieties isn’t only romantic, it’s how we keep interesting chocolate possible for the next generation. The fussy beans are usually the ones worth saving.

Taste what variety really means

Our bars are made from raw, single-origin Peruvian Criollo cacao, stone-ground at low temperature so the bean’s natural flavour and goodness stay intact. Independently tested by the Oxford Brookes Centre for Nutrition and Health and found to top five leading UK dark chocolate brands for polyphenols and antioxidants.

→ Shop our Peruvian Criollo chocolate

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Frequently Asked Questions

What are the three main types of cacao?
The three traditional cacao varieties are Criollo, Forastero and Trinitario. Criollo is rare and delicate, Forastero is hardy and makes up most of the world’s chocolate, and Trinitario is a hybrid of the two that balances flavour with resilience. Modern genetic research has since identified at least ten distinct clusters, so the three-variety model is a simplification.

Which cacao variety is the best?
There’s no single best, it depends what you want. Criollo is the most prized for delicate, complex flavour, which is why it suits fine and high-percentage chocolate. Forastero is valued for reliability and yield, and Trinitario offers a middle ground. For flavour and rarity, Criollo is the connoisseur’s choice.

Is Criollo cacao really that rare?
Yes. Criollo accounts for under 5% of world cacao production, and pure, unhybridised Criollo is rarer still, because the trees are fussy, disease-prone and low-yielding. Most growers choose hardier varieties, which makes genuine Criollo both scarce and more expensive.

What variety of cacao does Mr Popple’s use?
We use single-origin Peruvian Criollo, grown by a cooperative using sustainable agroforestry. We keep it raw and stone-grind it slowly at low temperature to preserve its delicate flavour notes and natural compounds.

Are there really only three cacao varieties?
No, that’s the traditional shorthand rather than the full picture. Genetic studies have identified at least ten distinct clusters of cacao, most of them native to the upper Amazon. The three-variety model is still useful for everyday conversation, but the real diversity is much greater.

Is Mr Popple’s Criollo chocolate any good?
We think the rare Criollo bean speaks for itself, and our customers seem to agree. Mr Popple’s Chocolate is rated 4.6 on Trustpilot and 5.0 on Google, and 100% recommend us on Facebook. Our single-origin Peruvian bars were also independently tested by the Oxford Brookes Centre for Nutrition and Health, which placed them top for polyphenols and antioxidants against four other leading UK dark chocolate brands.

Last updated: June 2026