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Chuao
Chuao is a small village located in the northern coastal range mountains of Venezuela, founded in 1660. The village is famous for its cacao plantations, Diablos danzantes and San Juaneras. The village is surrounded by mountains and dense rainforests to the south and the Caribbean Sea to the north. The nearby Henri Pittier National Park is the oldest national park in Venezuela, created in 1937. The village is only accessible by travelling via boat from nearby Choroní, and is approximately 4 kilometers inland. Etymology Chuao's name derives from an indigenous word from a local language which is related to the term water. History While cocoa production in the site of Chuao can be traced back to 1591, the town itself was founded in 1660. From 1591 onwards, the area was home to a number of haciendas which grew cocoa. During colonial times, a number of slaves were imported to the village from Africa to increase cocoa production on said haciendas. Operation Gideon On May 3 an ...
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Santiago Mariño Municipality
The Santiago Mariño Municipality is one of the 18 municipalities (municipios) that makes up the Venezuelan state of Aragua and, according to the 2011 census by the National Institute of Statistics of Venezuela, the municipality has a population of 211,010. The town of Turmero is the shire town of the Santiago Mariño Municipality and Chuao where some of the finest cocoa beans in the world are produced.http://www.ine.gob.ve/secciones/division/Aragua.zip The municipality is named for Venezuelan independence hero Santiago Mariño. Demographics The Santiago Mariño Municipality, according to a 2007 population estimate by the National Institute of Statistics of Venezuela, has a population of 191,731 (up from 165,436 in 2000). This amounts to 11.5% of the state's population. The municipality's population density is . Government The mayor of the Santiago Mariño Municipality is Francisco J. Gerratana, elected on October 31, 2004 with 62% of the vote. He replaced Efren Rodrigue ...
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Operation Gideon (2020)
:''This article uses Spanish naming customs: the paternal surname is first, and the maternal surname is second.'' Operation Gideon () was an unsuccessful attempt by the Active Coalition of the Venezuelan International Reserve, Venezuelan dissidents, and a private military company, private security firm, Jordan Goudreau's Silvercorp USA, to infiltrate Venezuela by sea and remove Nicolás Maduro from power. The plan executed from 3 to 4 May 2020 was for expatriate Venezuelan former military personnel living in Colombia to enter the country by boat at Macuto, Vargas, Macuto, take control of an airfield, capture Maduro and other high-level figures in his administration, and expel them from the country. A landing attempt to initiate the operation went forward despite its impracticality. Two boats were launched from eastern Colombia toward the Caribbean Sea, Caribbean coast of Venezuela north of Caracas, carrying approximately 60 Venezuelan dissidents and two American former Green B ...
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Aragua
Aragua State (, ) is one of the 23 states of Venezuela. It is located in the north-central region of Venezuela. It has plains, jungles and Caribbean beaches. The most popular beaches are Cata and Choroni. It has Venezuela's first national park, Henri Pittier National Park. The capital is Maracay. Other important cities include Turmero and El Limón. Aragua State covers a total surface area of and, based on the 2011 census information, the estimated population of Aragua State in 2012 is 1,630,308 inhabitants. Etymology The name of the state comes from an indigenous word of Cumanagoto (Caribbean) origin, which is used to refer to the Chaguaramo, a type of palm from the region uotation requiredHowever, according to Carlos Blanco Galeno, a chronicler from Turmero, it derives from the Cariban ''aregua'', with the morphemes ''are'' ('site') and ''gua'', which in turn derives from ''ogun'' ('my thing'); so ''aregua'' would mean 'my place, my country'. This same word inspired ...
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Cacao Plantation
''Theobroma cacao'' (cacao tree or cocoa tree) is a small ( tall) evergreen tree in the Malvaceae family. Its seedscocoa beansare used to make chocolate liquor, cocoa solids, cocoa butter and chocolate. Although the tree is native to the tropics of the Americas, the largest producer of cocoa beans in 2022 was Ivory Coast. The plant's leaves are alternate, entire, unlobed, long and broad. Description Flowers The flowers are produced in clusters directly on the trunk and older branches; this is known as cauliflory. The flowers are small, diameter, with pink calyx. The floral formula, used to represent the structure of a flower using numbers, is ✶ K5 C5 A(5°+52) (5). While many of the world's flowers are pollinated by bees (Hymenoptera) or butterflies/moths (Lepidoptera), cacao flowers are pollinated by tiny flies, '' Forcipomyia'' biting midges. Using the natural pollinator ''Forcipomyia'' midges produced more fruit than using artificial pollinators. Fruit T ...
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Henri Pittier National Park
Henri Pittier National Park is the oldest national park in Venezuela, originally created in 1937 under the name of ''Rancho Grande'' by decree of President Eleazar López Contreras. In 1953 the park was renamed in honor of Henri Pittier, a distinguished Swiss people, Swiss geographer, botanist and ethnologist, who arrived in Venezuela in 1917, classified more than 30,000 plants in the country and devoted many years studying the flora and fauna in the park. Henri Pittier National Park has the honor of having started the history of national parks of Venezuela. Its 107,800 hectares, located in the north of Aragua state, comprise most of the Araguan coast and mountainous area of Carabobo state. It also borders San Esteban National Park. Henri Pittier National Park is the largest among the national parks of the Venezuelan Coastal Range. The park consists of two geographic systems: a steep mountainous interior where there are more than 500 bird species and 22 Endemism, endemic species ...
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Cocoa Production
Chocolate is a food made from roasted and ground cocoa beans that can be a liquid, solid, or paste, either by itself or to flavor other foods. Cocoa beans are the processed seeds of the cacao tree (''Theobroma cacao''); unprocessed, they taste intensely bitter. In making chocolate, these seeds are usually fermented to develop the flavor. They are then dried, cleaned, and roasted. The shell is removed to reveal nibs, which are ground to chocolate liquor: unadulterated chocolate in rough form. The liquor can be processed to separate its two components, cocoa solids and cocoa butter, or shaped and sold as unsweetened baking chocolate. By adding sugar, sweetened chocolates are produced, which can be sold simply as dark chocolate (a.k.a., plain chocolate), or, with the addition of milk, can be made into milk chocolate. Making milk chocolate with cocoa butter and without cocoa solids produces white chocolate. In some chocolates, other ingredients such as vegetable oils, emulsifier ...
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Criollo (cocoa Bean)
The cocoa bean, also known as cocoa () or cacao (), is the dried and fully fermented seed of ''Theobroma cacao'', the cacao tree, from which cocoa solids (a mixture of nonfat substances) and cocoa butter (the fat) can be extracted. Cacao trees are native to the Amazon rainforest. They are the basis of chocolate and Mesoamerican foods including tejate, an indigenous Mexican drink. The cacao tree was first domesticated at least 5,300 years ago by the Mayo-Chinchipe culture in South America before it was introduced in Mesoamerica. Cacao was consumed by pre-Hispanic cultures in spiritual ceremonies, and its beans were a common currency in Mesoamerica. The cacao tree grows in a limited geographical zone; today, West Africa produces nearly 81% of the world's crop. The three main varieties of cocoa plants are Forastero, Criollo, and Trinitario, with Forastero being the most widely used. In 2024, global cocoa bean production reached 5.8 million tonnes, with Ivory Coast leading at 38% ...
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Amedei
Amedei is a premium artisan chocolate manufacturing company located in Pontedera in the Tuscany region of Italy, considered to be one of the finest chocolate producers in the world. Their products range from chocolate bars to truffles and pralines. Their award-winning chocolate bars use single-origin and single-variety cocoa beans. One of their products, Amedei Porcelana, is known as the world's most expensive chocolate.
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World's Most Expensive Ice Cream — Golden Opulence Sundae
They obtain their cocoa from the

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Lake Maracaibo
Lake Maracaibo () is located in northwestern Venezuela, between the states of Zulia, Trujillo, and Mérida. While Maracaibo is commonly referred to as a lake, its current hydrological characteristics may better classify it as estuary and/or semi-enclosed bay connected to the Gulf of Venezuela. With a surface area of , if counted as a lake it would be the largest in South America, ahead of Lake Titicaca, as well as one of the oldest lakes on Earth, having formed 36 million years ago in the Andes Mountains. The lake consists of brackish water, and is connected to the Gulf of Venezuela to the north by a narrow strait. It is fed by numerous rivers, the biggest being the Catatumbo River. The fault in the northern section has collapsed and is rich in oil and gas resources. It is Venezuela's main oil producing area and an important fishing and agricultural producing area. Eutrophication caused by oil pollution is a major environmental problem facing the lagoon. The area aroun ...
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Hybrid (biology)
In biology, a hybrid is the offspring resulting from combining the qualities of two organisms of different varieties, subspecies, species or genera through sexual reproduction. Generally, it means that each cell has genetic material from two different organisms, whereas an individual where some cells are derived from a different organism is called a chimera. Hybrids are not always intermediates between their parents such as in blending inheritance (a now discredited theory in modern genetics by particulate inheritance), but can show hybrid vigor, sometimes growing larger or taller than either parent. The concept of a hybrid is interpreted differently in animal and plant breeding, where there is interest in the individual parentage. In genetics, attention is focused on the numbers of chromosomes. In taxonomy, a key question is how closely related the parent species are. Species are reproductively isolated by strong barriers to hybridization, which include genetic and morph ...
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Appellation D'origine Contrôlée
In France, the ''appellation d'origine contrôlée'' (, ; abbr. AOC ) is a label that identifies an agricultural product whose stages of production and processing are carried out in a defined geographical area – the ''terroir'' – and using recognized and traditional know-how. The specificity of an AOC product is determined by the combination of a physical and biological environment with established production techniques transmitted within a human community. Together, these give the product its distinctive qualities. The defining technical and geographic factors are set forth in standards for each product, including wines, cheeses and meats. Other countries and the European Union have similar labeling systems. The European Union's protected designation of origin (PDO and PGI) system has harmonized the protection of all geographical indications and their registration. When labelling wine however, producers may still use recognized traditional terms like AOC, and are not requ ...
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