We eat it when we’re happy, sad, celebrating or commiserating.
It’s an incredibly important (and delicious) aspect of people’s lives worldwide.
But have you ever thought about where chocolate comes from?
We have the ancient Maya of Mesoamerica (made up of countries in what we now know as Central America and southern Mexico) to thank for chocolate. Although the Maya weren’t scoffing at the bars we know and love today.
It all starts with the cacao bean. Cacao is the Spanish word for chcahuatl, which is what Aztecs called the beans chocolate is made from. It’s thought that English traders misspelt cacao when they brought the beans home, so cocoa stuck.
They would dry, grind, and mix the beans with water to create a drink. It was pretty bitter and frothy and was often mixed with chilli. After the Aztecs conquered the Maya, they went berserk for the stuff.
The Mayans and the Aztecs believed (and perhaps some still do) that chocolate was a gift from the gods. The Aztecs, in particular – gave it to victorious warriors after a battle, would use it during religious rituals, and even used cacao beans as currency. To them, cacao beans were more valuable than gold.
Next time someone says money doesn’t grow on trees, you’ll know what to tell them.
The Aztec word for the bitter drink is ‘xocolatl’, which some think the modern word chocolate comes from. It bears a resemblance… sort of.
Others think chocolate comes from the Aztec word ‘choqui’, which means warmth.
How did it make its way to Europe?
During the 16th century, a man called Hernán Cortés travelled to Mesoamerica to establish Spanish colonies. When he arrived, he was greeted with gallons of the spicy drink. He took some home with him to Spain, and it became a hit.
Initially, it was often used as a medicine, but its bitter taste led people to try sweetening it. So, some added sugar, vanilla or honey. This made it delicious, and it soon became very fashionable at the Spanish court.
Chocolate then became ‘the’ drink of the European aristocracies. No upper-class home was complete without chocolate-making and drinking paraphernalia.
In 1828, Coenraad van Houten, from Amsterdam, was the man who changed the game. He invented the ‘cocoa press’, which could separate the fat from a cacao bean, leaving behind a fine powder.
This powder was much tastier to enjoy as a drink, and people started adding milk to it instead of water, making it more like the hot chocolate we’d drink today. This method also meant chocolate could be mass-produced, making it cheaper so the wider public could buy and enjoy it. Some called this the democratisation of chocolate.
In 1847 British chocolatier J.S. Fry and Sons had the novel idea of recombining the fat and liquor and adding sugar. He set this in moulds, and voila! The chocolate bar was born.
The chocolate made through this method resembled mild dark chocolate. The next significant episode in the chocolate saga came when Swiss chocolatier Daniel Peter put powdered milk in the mix, creating the world’s first milk chocolate bar.
Chocolate’s popularity soared from then on, and it’s never really declined.
J.S. Fry and Sons are not only responsible for the first chocolate bar but also for the first chocolate Easter egg. Decorating eggs at Easter time had been a popular Christian tradition for centuries, but in 1873 Fry decided to create a chocolate version.
Some of our most popular bars of chocolate are more than 100 years old, being produced in the 1920s and 1930s
Products launched in the 20s included Cadburys Flake, Fruit and Nut and Crunchy Bar, followed in 1933 by the Mars Bar, then Milky Way and Kit Kat.
Chocolate is the most popular sweet treat in the world. People around the world (but mainly in Europe and the United States) consume more than 3 million tons of cocoa beans a year, according to the World Cocoa Foundation.
Not only does eating chocolate make you feel good, but it may also be good for your heart and brain.