Cocoa tree still has sylvan existence in its natural environment in upper Amazon, on oriental slopes of the Andes from it is native. Then was cultivated and extended in Central America where it was discovered, at the beginning of the 16 century by the Spanish conqusitadors.

Aid programs promoted by the U.S. development agency, for the installation of alternative crops to coca cultivation, a specialty of high Huallaga valley until the 2000, have significantly promoted the planting of cocoa CCN 51, a cloned hybrid Ecuadorian experimentation that is the basis of the revival of production in the valley of Huallaga

It is found in the stories of the Spanish missions going with the colonization of the Amazon during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries many remarks on the abundance and quality of cocoa extracted from forests bordering the Huallaga river. Traditionally cocoa is extracted by Amazonian peoples from sylvan cocoa trees that abound in the region.