The history of chocolate

Maya and Aztecs - the first chocolate makers and eaters

The first known plantations growing cacao trees, which were used to make chocolate, were planted by the Maya around 600 AD. At that time, the Maya were expanding their homes and moving into the northern parts of South America, discovering the Yucatan Peninsula, which was ideal for cacao growing and chocolate making. Thus, the Maya could be said to have been the first mass producers of chocolate.

But the Mayans and Aztecs had already encountered chocolate centuries before that. Interestingly, this food was so valued in the beginning that it was not only used as food, but also to pay for services and to exchange for even more valuable items.

The word chocolate itself is a derivative of the Mayan word ''xocolatl'' and translates as a frothy drink. In its original form, chocolate was not made in the form of bars or candies as we know it today, but in the form of a drink. According to Aztec legend, the seeds of the cacao tree were brought to our world from paradise itself, and the Aztecs believed that a person who consumed chocolate, or this divine drink, would grow in wisdom and strength.
This divine historical fact also bears the Latin name of the cacao tree, the plant from which chocolate is extracted. The cacao tree was originally called simply ''cacao'' (cocoa), but the Swedish naturalist Carl Linne, who did pioneering work in naming plants and animals, renamed the plant Theobroma cacao. Theobroma means ''food of the gods'' in Greek. It was precisely because chocolate was considered to be the food of the gods that it was so valued and expensive in Central and South America.

Chocolate in Europe

The first "culprit" for chocolate finding its way to Europe was Christopher Columbus, who discovered Central America on his exploration of the Indies. The Aztecs gave him bags full of cocoa beans as a gift, which Columbus took back to Europe. But at the court of King Ferdinand of Spain, these gifts were simply overlooked in the crowd of other golden gifts, and Columbus did not know the process of making chocolate. Thus, the first contact of chocolate with Europeans was disastrous, as the seeds were eventually thrown away.

10 cocoa beans could buy you a rabbit, 100 cocoa beans could buy you a good slave. Chocolate became more prominent among Europeans in 1519, 17 years after Columbus first brought chocolate to Europe. At that time, Hernando Cortez visited the court of the Emperor of Montezuma and learned how to make the chocolate drink.

The Spanish conquistadors also saw that the Emperor drank his chocolate drink before visiting his mistresses, and so they believed that chocolate was an aphrodisiac.

They then took this knowledge of chocolate back to Europe and shared it with the Spanish court.

But the knowledge of how to make chocolate was a closely guarded secret for centuries, known only to the Spanish in Europe. The King of Spain left the care of the cacao tree and the making of chocolate to the Spanish monks, who kept the secret well guarded. Chocolate thus became a powerful and expensive export product for Spain, and the European maritime power planted large cocoa plantations in its colonies to serve the needs of the chocolate industry. In the early 17th century, however, the secret of chocolate production became known to other European courts, and other countries such as France, Italy and Germany became involved in chocolate production.

But despite the large cocoa plantations in the Americas, chocolate in Europe remained a drink and a dessert for the wealthy classes. Poorer people could not afford it, as half a litre of this delicious drink cost as much as 15 shillings in 17th-century London, a huge sum for the times. Cocoa beans remained a means of payment in Central America for some time. Thus, 10 cocoa beans could buy you a rabbit and 100 cocoa beans could buy you a good slave.

From Europe, chocolate made its way back to the American continent as settlers migrated to North America. It took some time for chocolate to spread to the settlers in North America. Thus, as time went on, the chocolate industry developed and chocolate became available in solid form and no longer as a drink. It was the solid form of chocolate that contributed greatly to its expansion, as the transport of chocolate became easier and chocolate slowly became available to the less affluent classes.

Today, chocolate is a food that is known and widely distributed throughout the world. The annual production of cocoa beans is around 600 000 tonnes and is steadily increasing year on year. The chocolate industry in America is now worth billions of dollars. But it has taken more than 1 000 years of development and innovation to transform chocolate from a primitive drink known to the Mayans and Aztecs of the Americas into a food that excites and awakens our taste buds. But the evolution of the chocolate industry is far from over, with new chocolate products every year and new additives to make eating chocolate even more intoxicating.