The History of Chocolate

A word of vocabulary here_ Cacao (Theobroma cacao) is the tree, cocoa is the name of the beans, and chocolate is the confection made from cocoa beans.

Sometime around 1000 B.C. the Maya, whose civilization flourished from the Yucatan Peninsula to the Pacific coast of Guatemala, are believed to have cultivated the cacao tree for the very first time. According to legend, the Maya so highly valued cacao, they used cocoa beans as currency, and to pay taxes.

The seafaring legend Christopher Columbus was actually the first non-native to see cacao. In 1502 Columbus was moored off the island of Guanaja on the coast of Honduras, when he was visited by an Aztec chief bearing gifts. Among the gifts presented to Columbus were cocoa beans, which neither he nor his crew recognized. The Aztec made a beverage of the beans for Columbus, and called the drink cacahuatl. Columbus reputedly brought some beans back to the Spanish royal court along with numerous other treasures, but they received only cursory attention.

In 1519, Hernan Cortez landed at Tabasco on Mexico's Gulf Of Campeche. He and his crew marched on the Aztec capital of Tenochtitlan. There they were greeted by the Aztec ruler Montezuma, who presented Cortez with a large load of cocoa beans from a vast cacao plantation. Cortez quickly ascertained the value of the bean. The Aztec made a drink of finely ground cocoa beans, mixed in water and beaten to a froth with a wooden stirring instrument called a molinet. The beverage was a potation of the privileged. People of high rank, including members of the royal house, nobility and warriors, drank cacahuatl.

When Cortez returned to Spain from the New World in 1528, he told of a widely consumed food made from the fruit seeds of a tree. Cortez and his conquistadores described great plantations of Theobroma cacao throughout Mexico. His account of chocolate, its popularity and value, greatly piqued the interest of the Spanish.

In 1544, a delegation of Mayan nobles visited the court of Spain's Prince Philip. Among the many treasures they bore were cocoa beans. In 1585, the first commercial shipment of cacao beans arrived in Seville. Chocolate soon made its way from Mexico to Spain not just in the form of cocoa beans, but also in pressed tablets or slabs. The Europeans added an additional seminal element to the prized Aztec drink that would change the face of chocolate forever. Sugar sweetened the bitter beverage, making it immediately pleasing to the European palate. Unlike the Aztec, the Spanish drank their chocolate hot, not cold. Chocolate was received with enthusiasm. Realizing the great commercial value of this delightful drink, the Spanish began cacao plantations in their overseas colonies.

The Spaniards also discovered large forests of wild cacao in the Guayaquil coast of Ecuador. By clearing other vegetation away from the cacao trees, the Spanish had a fast and easy source of cacao, made even cheaper by slave labor. The Jesuits too found large stands of wild cacao growing along the banks of the Amazon and its tributaries. Thus cocoa beans from Mesoamerica and South America made their way to an increasingly chocolate-hungry Europe.

Chocolate encountered a religious hurdle in 1591, when the question arose whether or not the consumption of the beverage broke the Lenten fast. The Jesuits, who traded in chocolate, contended that the ambrosial drink most certainly did not break the fast. By contrast, the Dominicans took up an opposing view. Eventually the issue came to Pope Gregory XIII, who declared that drinking chocolate did not break the Lenten fast. Score one for chocolate, whose name Theobroma cacao means "food of the gods."

Chocolate took advantage of the institution of matrimony with the 1615 marriage of Hapsburg-Spanish princess Anna of Austria to Louis XIII. As one of many wedding gifts Anna presented a casket of chocolate to Louis. By virtue of this conjugation, chocolate slipped across family lines and international borders, and became the favored drink of the French court.

A short while later, chocolate made its way from France to Italy. The sweet, sensuous flavor and feel of the beverage appealed greatly to the Italians, whose sensibilities of luxury were similar to those of the Spanish. Chocolate fit the romance language nations like a soft hand in a tailored velvet glove. A drink of cocoa, sugar, cinnamon, vanilla and water became a staple.

In the 17th and 18th century, Venezuela was the primary supplier of cocoa beans to Europe. Spanish and Dutch traders sailed ships laden with Venezuelan cacao to eager European markets. At the same time, the scenic West Indies became home to sprawling cacao plantations. Martinique, Guadalupe, Jamaica, Hispaniola and Trinidad all became important suppliers of cocoa beans.

In 1657, the first of many English chocolate houses opened in London. Numerous others quickly sprang up. In 1824 Quaker John Cadbury opened a coffee and tea shop in Birmingham, where he also sold hot chocolate. Cadbury would go on to become one of the world's great chocolate dynasties.

In 1700, the invention of a mechanical, steam-driven chocolate grinder changed the fundamentals of the chocolate industry. A labor-intensive process performed by hand in small quantities became a matter of mass production. Due to reduced labor costs, prices tumbled and chocolate became economically accessible to the average person.

Chocolate, while busy spreading itself throughout Europe, jumped the ocean in reverse, when cocoa beans from the West Indies landed in Dorchester, Massachusetts. There John Hanan established the first North American chocolate factory. In 1819, Francois-Louis Cailler built the first Swiss chocolate factory, in Vevey. The Swiss would further advance chocolate's fortunes with innovation. In 1875 partners Daniel Peter and Henri Nestle turned out the world's first milk chocolate. The Swiss enjoyed exclusive manufacturing of milk chocolate until the British firm Cadbury developed its process for the same product in 1904. But it was Rudolph Lindt who discovered perhaps the greatest secret of chocolate making - conching. As a result of mixing chocolate for several days and adding more cocoa butter, the confection melted in the mouth. This transformed chocolate manufacturing everywhere, and today all manufactured chocolate is conched.

In 1889, Jean Tobler, a former confectionery trader, founded the Tobler factory in Berne, with his sons. Their famous Toblerone bar was made in the shape of the Swiss Alps, and contained chocolate with a nougat of almonds and honey.

Even as chocolate was stimulating invention and industry in Europe, cacao trees were springing up in every tropical location. The Portuguese planted cacao in Sao Tome' and Fernando Po, in Africa. The plantations would spread on that continent to the Gold Coast, Nigeria and the Ivory Coast. The British planted cacao in Ceylon, while the Dutch did likewise in Java and Sumatra. Plantations spread across the Pacific to New Guinea, the New Hebrides, Samoa and the Philippines.

In 1907 The Perugina chocolate factory was founded by Giovanni Buitoni and family. Perugina made the first chocolate "kisses," wrapped in love missives. Even as several European companies were rising stars in the chocolate field, two US-based chocolate companies would become titans in the world of cacao. Hershey's Chocolate was founded in 1895 by Milton Hershey, and their eventual arch-rival Mars Co was founded by Frank Mars in 1922. Both companies would become huge, and both would generate not only mountains of chocolate products, but staggering wealth as well.

Today chocolate is consumed widely throughout Europe and the Americas, and to a lesser extent in other parts of the world. Large commercial cacao plantations operate in the Ivory Coast, Brazil, Ghana, Malaysia, Indonesia, Nigeria, Cameroon, Ecuador, Columbia, the Dominican Republic, Mexico, and Papua New Guinea. Smaller plantations can be found in just about every other tropical location large or small. Chocolate has captivated humanity with its exotic flavor and sensuous mouth feel. The world would be a poorer place if not for heavenly chocolate!

Chris Kilham is a medicine hunter who researches natural remedies all over the world, from the Amazon to Siberia. He teaches ethnobotany at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, where he is Explorer In Residence. Chris advises herbal, cosmetic and pharmaceutical companies and is a regular guest on radio and TV programs worldwide. His field research is largely sponsored by Naturex of Avignon, France. Read more at www.MedicineHunter.com