A BRIEF HISTORY OF
CHOCOLATE

When most of us hear the word chocolate, we picture a bar, a box of bonbons, an Easter egg. But for about 90% of chocolate’s long history, it was strictly a beverage, and sugar didn’t have anything to do with it.

The origin of “chocolate” can be traced back to the Aztec word “xocoatl,” which referred to a bitter drink brewed from cacao beans. It is estimated that chocolate has been around for three to four millennia, dating back to pre-Columbian cultures such as the Olmecs. For several centuries cacao beans were considered valuable enough to use as currency. 10 beans would buy you a rabbit or a prostitute. 100 beans a slave.

Both the Mayans and Aztecs believed the cacao bean had magical and divine properties, suitable for the most sacred rituals of birth, marriage and death. Sacrifice victims who felt too melancholy to join in ritual dancing before their death were often given a gourd of chocolate (tinged with the blood of previous victims) to cheer them up. Sweetened chocolate didn’t appear until Europeans discovered the Americas. Legend has it that the Aztec king Montezuma welcomed the Spanish explorer Hernando Cortes with chocolate, having mistaken him for the reincarnated Quetzalcoatl, and thus paid him the homage of a god. Chocolate didn’t suit the foreigners’ taste buds at first, but once mixed with honey or cane sugar, it quickly became popular throughout Spain.

By the 17th century, chocolate was a fashionable drink throughout Europe, believed to have nutritious, medicinal and aphrodisiac properties. But it remained largely a privilege of the rich until the invention of the steam engine made mass production possible in the late 1700s. In 1828, a Dutch chemist found a way to make powdered chocolate by removing half the natural fat (cacao butter) from chocolate liquor. His product became known as “Dutch cocoa,” and it soon led to the creation of solid chocolate. The creation of the first modern chocolate bar is credited to Joseph Fry, who in 1847 discovered that he could make a moldable chocolate paste by adding melted cacao butter back into Dutch cocoa.

In America, chocolate was so valued during the Revolutionary War that it was included in soldiers’ rations and used in lieu of wages. While most of us probably wouldn’t settle for a chocolate paycheck these days, the humble cacao bean is still a powerful economic force. In the 20th century, the word “chocolate” expanded to include a range of affordable treats with more sugar and additives than actual cacao in them, but more recently, there’s been a “chocolate revolution,” marked by an increasing interest in high-quality, handmade chocolates and sustainable, effective cacao farming and harvesting methods.