We’d all like to think that chocolate just fell from the skies like nectar from the gods but that’s not so. It did have a little ways to go to be considered sweet to the taste. Here is a little background on the evolution of chocolate.

 

Mesoamerica

 

Chocolate, namely cocoa beans have been used for thousands of years. As early as 250 A.D., ancient civilizations of Mexico and South America used the cocoa bean. It was used as currency.

 

The trees grew under shade cover on the rainforest floor. Over centuries, natives cultivated the plant and moved it to their villages where each could grow their own. Maybe that’s where the phrase “money growing on trees” came from. Literally, they could grow their own currency. That was one importance of the bean.

 

Secondly, the cocoa bean was used as a drink. The beans were fermented, roasted and then ground into a paste. Mixed with water, spices and sometimes cornmeal, the drink was quite popular. The commoner got to drink it during celebrations, but the chocolate drink, called xocoatl was reserved mostly for the upper echelons of society – the Emperor (of course), soldiers and priests.

 

Because the drink contained almost 100% cocoa solids, the effects that we have discovered today were quite prominent back then. The drink increases stamina, endurance, mood and was used as an aphrodisiac by Montezuma.