The Museu do Cacau traces the history of cacao cultivation in the Bahian south coast, from the original Theobroma cacao trees of the Atlantic Forest through the plantation boom of the 19th and early 20th centuries, the catastrophic collapse caused by witches' broom fungus (Moniliophthora perniciosa) in the 1980s, and the slow recovery that followed. The museum makes the economic history of the region tangible — Ilhéus and the surrounding towns are incomprehensible without understanding cacao.
Exhibits include original plantation equipment, photographs of the fazenda social world that Jorge Amado described in his novels, and material on the ecology of cacao — it is, after all, a forest crop that requires shade trees and biodiversity to thrive. Allow about an hour. The gift shop sells local cacao products worth buying.