THE HISTORY OF CHOCOLATE

The History of Chocolate

"The History of Chocolate

Introduction

The word "chocolate" is said to have derived from the Mayan "xocoatl"; cocoa from the Aztec "cacahuatl". The earliest record of chocolate was over fifteen hundred years ago in Central America, tropical forests, where the tropical mix of high rain fall combined with high year-round temperature and humidity, provides ideal conditions for the cultivation of plants from which chocolate is derived, the Cacao tree.

History of chocolate

In 600 BC Maya migrated to northern South America, establishing the first known cocoa plantations in the Yucatán. She claimed that the Maya have been familiar with cocoa several centuries prior to that date. They consider it a valuable commodity, used as a means of payment, and as the unit of calculation.

Maya and Aztecs took beans from the "cacao" tree and drink they called "xocoatl". Aztec Indian legend that cacao seeds were brought from Paradise and that wisdom and power came from using the fruits of the cocoa tree. * Ancient chronicles report that the Aztecs, believing that the god Quetzalcoatl traveled to earth with a beam of the Morning Star of cocoa tree from Paradise, took his proposal to the people.

American historian William Hickling in the conquest of Mexico (1838) reports that Montezuma "took no other beverage than chocolatl, a mouthful of chocolate, with the scent of vanilla and spices, and so prepared to bring to the foam from the sequence of honey, which gradually dissolves in the mouth, and it was cold. "The fact that Montezuma consumed his" chocolatl "in goblets before entering his harem led to the belief that he is the aphrodisiac.

In 1528 Cortez brought chocolate from Mexico to the royal court of King Charles V. monks from Spain hidden in monasteries, processed the cocoa beans and chocolate is kept secret for nearly a century. He made a profitable industry in Spain, which planted cocoa trees in its overseas colonies. He took Italian traveler, Antonio Carletti, to discover the chocolate treasure in 1606 and adopt it in other parts of Europe.

he first chocolate for an overall home was opened in London in 1657 for the Frenchman. The cost of 10 to 15 shillings per pound, chocolate was considered a beverage for the elite class. Sixteenth-century Spanish historian Oviedo noted: "No, but a rich and noble could afford to drink chocolatl as it was literally drinking money. Cocoa passed currency as money among all ...