What you need to know about the History of Chocolate
The delicious origins of the sweet chocolate we know are linked to a bitter drink first created by early Mesoamerican residents. The Classic Period, which consists of the era between 250-900 AD, is when people began using it in their religious and social lives. The beans had to be harvested from rainforests around the Mayan built gorgeous cities. The English translation of the Mayan word for chocolate (“xocoatl”) means “bitter water”. The beans were fermented and then roasted to form a paste. In order to complete the spicy chocolate drink, water, chili peppers, cornmeal, and a variety of other substances were added to the paste.
The Aztecs did begin to adopt cocoa as a type of currency once they became the dominant people in Mesoamerica, as well. Soon chocolate became an integrated part of the Aztecs lives as well. Along with the rulers that the Mayans allowed to drink the beverage, the Aztecs also allowed it to be consumed by priests, honored merchants, and decorated soldiers.
Through fruits and beans, Aztecs believed that they would gain much power and wisdom. They were the first to believe that cocoa beans had aphrodisiac qualities. When Columbus returned from his trip to the Americas, he brought cocoa with him, but the items didn’t attract a whole lot of notice. It was through repeated trips to the New World that the Europeans finally discovered that the beans had a usage as currency.
Dumping the name of “xocoatl,” the Aztecs began calling their drink “chocolatl,” whose English equivalent is “warm liquid”. By 1519, however, Hernando Cortex Begin had a cocoa tree plantation, the very first. The plantation, which was created in the name of Spain, gave the Spanish King Charles the Fifth his first experience of spicy chocolate. The new delicacy gained even more revered status when Hernando began experimenting by blending the beans with sugar. Further additives, such as nutmeg, vanilla, cinnamon, and cloves were added to the bean as well.
The Spanish nobility alone were granted access to the indulgence of this drink, and neither its lower class citizens nor other countries were allowed access. Spanish monks gained access to the beans in order to cultivate them, and it was through the monks that the rest of the world was let in on the secret. Some parts of Europe continued to use chocolate as a currency as it spread throughout Europe as a delicacy.
Ever since, chocolate spread throughout the decades and centuries, to become the treasured sweet it is today. Over time, it has dropped the religious and royalty purposes, and has experienced growth in the taste department. Continual research is conflicted on the question of chocolate being an aphrodisiac, but research does agree that a certain amount of dark cocoa is good for you.
