Where Do Cashews Come From?

They’re a delicious nut, and a great part of many dishes. High in protein, they’re quite healthy for you. Yet, how much do you really know about the cashew? How far does it travel to get to your plate?

A cashew is a tree that is native to Brazil. The cashew tree is part of the plant family Anacardiaceae, and is a small evergreen tree that grows to about ten or twelve meters. Other fruit that belong to this family include the mango, and the pistachio. You might be able to recognize the tree by its irregular trunk, or the spiral leaves that circle the tree. The tree produces flowers that can grow up to twenty-six centimeters long, which are reddish in color. The petals can grow up to fifteen millimeters, although smaller petals might only grow to about seven millimeters.

The tree produces a false fruit (also called a pseudocarp by scientists), called the cashew apple. In Central America, it is called the “maranon.” It’s an oval shaped fruit, and is yellow when it is ripe. It grows to about five centimeters in length, and is edible. It tastes sweet when you consume it, and is extremely juicy. The skin is edible as well. However, this is not the true fruit of the cashew tree.

The Drupe

The actual fruit grows at the end of the cashew apple, and is a curved drupe. A drupe is where the outer part of the fruit surrounds the seed—similar to a peach, or nectarine. The seed that is located within the fruit is the cashew nut. This means that the cashew nut is technically a seed, rather than a nut.

The outer protection that surrounds the nut contains anacardic acid, which is a skin irritant that is similar to what is found in poison ivy. Before the nut can be ingested, this acid like oil that surrounds the nut needs to be burned out of the stem. This then roasts the nuts on the inside, and then the nut is digestible. The process is extremely labor intensive, and it is due to this process that cashews are extremely expensive.

Where Are Cashew Trees Grown?

So where do cashews come from in the world? Although, the tree is native to Brazil, it has been growing in other countries for centuries. The tree was first discovered in Brazil in 1578. Specifically, it grows between the Amazon rain forest and the Atlantic rain forest. The area in which the cashew tree grows is dryer than the rain forests, much more similar to a savannah, or a dry forest. The cashew tree does not grow well in wetter conditions; they are much more productive in climates that alternate between wet and dry seasons.

History of the Cashew Seed

The Portuguese transported the cashew seed from Brazil to India and east Africa as early as the sixteenth century. The initial planting of the tree was actually not for food production, it was to reduce erosion in India. Actually eating the cashew apple, or the cashew nut, did not become a part of culture until years later. After decades, the tree became naturalized in these environments.

In the nineteenth century, individuals realized that the cashew tree had a commercial value beyond controlling erosion. The tree was planted in a multitude of other countries, such as other parts of South America, Vietnam, and Nigeria. Today, the majority of the world’s cashews come from these countries (over ninety percent). The primary countries that import the nut are the United States, the Netherlands, and Germany. In many other countries and cultures—especially within the countries that plant the tree—the cashew nut is actually discarded. For example, in Central America and Ecuador, the pseudo fruit of the cashew tree is mixed together with a fruit salad.