Cru is a word borrowed from the wine world, meaning terroir or the physical environment in which the plant is grown. In the cacao world it is used to indicate single varietals and/or areas that have specific plants. The names of the crus generally reflect countries and provinces where the cacao is grown, e.g., Valrhona’s Guanaja (an island off Honduras), Caraïbe (Caribbean), Manjari (Madagascar), and Jivara (South America). (Valrhona further creates bars from cacao grown on particular estates: Gran Couva (a plantation in Trinidad), Ampamakia (a plantation in northern Madagascar), Palmira (a plantation close to Lake Maracaïbo in western Venezuela). In some cases, producers have invented cru names, analogous to brand names. Examples of the latter are Domori’s Puertofino, Puertomar and Apurimac. Different producers can buy beans from the same place of origin but their chocolate will taste very different. There are different factors that contribute to the final product: the specific trees from which the beans came (i.e., the genetics of the cacao), how ripe the pods were at harvest, fermentation technique, optimal drying, and then, the particular “recipe” of the chocolatier, including roasting, refining, conching and blending.