Chocolate

The story of chocolate begins more than 2,000 years ago in equatorial Central America where the Mayan Indians held cocoa beans in high regard.  Mayan writings refer to cacao as “food of the gods.” It was the Mayans who first created a beverage from crushed cocoa beans which was enjoyed by royalty and shared at sacred ceremonies.  Chocolate’s importance in the Aztec Empire also is clearly recorded. The Aztecs called the prized drink they made from cocoa beans “chocolatl,” which means “warm liquid.”

Although Christopher Columbus brought a handful of cocoa beans to Spain in 1502, it was Hernán Cortéz, following his conquest of what is now known as Mexico between 1519 and 1521, who introduced drinking chocolate sweetened it with cane sugar to the European audience.

In Spain, the drink continued to undergo refinements, but remained a Spanish treat for nearly 100 years.  In 1580, the first cocoa processing plant was established in Spain and soon thereafter the delicious drink was acclaimed throughout Europe, especially England and France.

It wasn’t until the mid-1800s, however, that the first solid eating chocolate was developed and during the next 100 years production of chocolate advanced rapidly, including the development of the conching process, a method of heating and rolling chocolate to refine it; the invention of milk chocolate; and the creation of today’s popular candy bar style of chocolate.