History of Chocolate

In the history of humanity, few products have had such a strong allure as chocolate...

However, chocolate is a very unusual crop and it is one of the only plants that people learned to drink before they learned how to eat it. In fact, it took several millenia to work out how to turn chocolate into a food.

Cacao trees are also very difficult to grow and seem to die at any opportunity...

First Discovery

The first known people to consume cacao lived in what is now Mexico around 5-6000 years ago. The plants were not farmed and instead the people gathered either the beans or the leaves and fermented them into an alcoholic drink.

The Olmecs became the first people to actively farm the beans and attached a powerful religious significance to them.

Around 2500 years ago, the great city states of the Maya began to rise from the jungles of Central America. Their version of chocolate was different from their predecessors as it was non alcoholic and used the cacao beans, not the tree's leaves.

Instead they ground the beans down into a fine paste before mixing them with water. The drink was then poured repeatedly between two cups to make it frothy. As sugar had not arrived in Central America, spices such as chilli peppers were added to give it flavour. This drink was consumed by people from all social classes.

The emergence of the Aztec Empire would further change the history of chocolate as they used it as their secret weapon in their wars of expansion. Conquered lands were forced to pay tribute in cacao beans so enormous farms were built to fuel the Aztec war effort. Their soldiers were given a daily ration of cacao, crushed into a pellet that could be used to make drinks. For an army of 300,000 soldiers, that is an awful lot of chocolate.

The Aztecs were also the first civilisation to serve the drink hot.

The Spanish Are Coming

In 1521, the New World was rocked to its core as the Aztec Empire was wiped out by the invading Spanish. The conquerors came for gold, but instead found cacao. The Aztec's great infrastructure for growing cacao now fell into Spanish hands and soon 'xocōlātl' or 'chocolate' began to pour into Europe.

After chocolate arrived in Europe, the innovations came at a much faster pace. Chocolate was an acquired taste because it was so bitter, however, that began to change when sugar was added. Sugar was long established as a popular treat among Europe's elite and its union with chocolate was inevitable. The new sweetened taste also removed the need for strong spices like chilli.

In the late 1600's, milk was used to replace water and finally a drink that we would recognise as hot chocolate was born.

Eating Chocolate?

In the 1800's, an effort was made to simplify the process of making hot chocolate. However, this had a side effect; the process allowed the chocolate to be eaten! This new product was unusual as people were accustomed to chocolate only being a drink, but as time went on, 'eating chocolate' became the dominant form.

A rapid series of discoveries transformed the crude early attempts at a chocolate bar into the luxury item of today; giving chocolate the distinction of being possibly the only luxury product you can eat and drink.