I always loved the lingering taste of chocolate in my mouth. So, I decided to do an Internet search about chocolate and write about the "history of chocolate".
I learnt that the first people to use chocolate were probably the Olmec, who lived in what was today's South East Mexico around 1,000 BC, and their word "Kakawa", gave us our word "cocao".
But, the Maya, who inbabited the same general area a thousand years later from about 250 - 900 AD, were the first to use chocolate a lot. The cacao beans were used as a currency to buy items like rabbits and even slaves! The cacao beans was still used as currency in parts of Latin America until the 19th century! The Maya prepared chocolate strictly for drinking. Only the rich drank much chocolate. Emperors were even buried with jars of chocolate at their side!
When the Aztecs conquered the Maya, they kept the chocolate tradition alive. They drank chocolate just like the Maya, although they sometimes preferred their chocolate cold.
From 1519, the Spanish, Cortez conquered the Aztecs and changed chocolate history. the Spanish had taken over many Caribbean islands where there were lots of sugar. It came to no surprise that someone put sugar in chocolate and soon after, everyone was clamoring for sweet chocolate.
I learnt that the first people to use chocolate were probably the Olmec, who lived in what was today's South East Mexico around 1,000 BC, and their word "Kakawa", gave us our word "cocao".
But, the Maya, who inbabited the same general area a thousand years later from about 250 - 900 AD, were the first to use chocolate a lot. The cacao beans were used as a currency to buy items like rabbits and even slaves! The cacao beans was still used as currency in parts of Latin America until the 19th century! The Maya prepared chocolate strictly for drinking. Only the rich drank much chocolate. Emperors were even buried with jars of chocolate at their side!
When the Aztecs conquered the Maya, they kept the chocolate tradition alive. They drank chocolate just like the Maya, although they sometimes preferred their chocolate cold.
From 1519, the Spanish, Cortez conquered the Aztecs and changed chocolate history. the Spanish had taken over many Caribbean islands where there were lots of sugar. It came to no surprise that someone put sugar in chocolate and soon after, everyone was clamoring for sweet chocolate.
Chocolate soon made its way to the rich people in rest of Europe. In the 1850s, Englishman Joseph Fry created the first solid chocolate by adding more cocoa butter. Milk chocolate ... yum ...
And by the way, did you know that the first milk chocolate bar was created in 1875 by Daniel Peter and Henri Nestle, when they added condensed milk to solid chocolate?
Amazingly today, over 3 billion tons of cacao supplies a 35 billion dollar chocolate industry! Now, that's a lot of chocolate going around the world!
For keepsakes, I have added a link to an infographic which I googled on the "history of chocolate" to this post. Enjoy!
later,
Elijah Wee
Comments
Post a Comment