



Fuel for the Aztec and European war machines, a catalyst for massive industrial innovation and a tasty treat adored by chocoholics across the globe. It was enjoyed by powerful Emperor’s on both sides of the Atlantic and filled the pockets of enterprising missionaries. With its roots as a spicy and fatty drink in ancient Mesoamerica.





How did chocolate eventually become the guilty pleasure of billions?





Let’s find this out today’s blog post.









Invention Summary





If you can't imagine life without chocolate, you're lucky you weren't born before the 16th century. Until then, chocolate only existed in Mesoamerica in a form quite different from what we know. As far back as 1900 BCE, the people of that region had learned to prepare the beans of the native cacao tree.





The earliest records tell us the beans were ground and mixed with cornmeal and chili peppers to create a drink - not a relaxing cup of hot cocoa, but a bitter, invigorating concoction frothing with foam. And if you thought we make a big deal about chocolate today, the Mesoamericans had us beat. They believed that cacao was a heavenly food gifted to humans by a feathered serpent god, known to the Maya as Kukulkan and to the Aztecs as Quetzalcoatl.





Aztecs by Montaplex, PD image.









Aztecs used cacao beans as currency and drank chocolate at royal feasts, gave it to soldiers as a reward for success in battle, and used it in rituals. The first transatlantic chocolate encounter occurred in 1519 when Hernán Cortés visited the court of Moctezuma at Tenochtitlan.





As recorded by Cortés's lieutenant, the king had 50 jugs of the drink brought out and poured into golden cups. When the colonists returned with shipments of the strange new bean, missionaries' salacious accounts of native customs gave it a reputation as an aphrodisiac. At first, its bitter taste made it suitable as a medicine for ailments, like upset stomachs, but sweetening it with honey, sugar, or vanilla quickly made chocolate a popular delicacy in the Spanish court. And soon, no aristocratic home was complete without dedicated chocolate ware.









How did these ancient people turn this into their favourite chocolate beverage?





Spread across the jungle of the Gulf Coast of Mexico are enormous carved stone heads, these slightly chubbier versions of the Moai belong to the Olmecs and are nearly 3000 years old. The Olmecs are our original chocolatiers and we have linguistic and archaeological evidence linking them to cacao cultivation at least as far back as 1000 BC. They drank it as a bitter beverage rather than the solid sweet we eat today.





First, they would ferment, then sun dry, and then roast and deshell the cacao beans. Leaving them with a nib that was then ground and melted into something called chocolate liquor. Which would have tasted like extremely bitter dark chocolate. Mix it up with some vanilla, honey, or even chilis and you got yourself a traditional Mesoamerican cacao drink. They loved the froth that would settle on top on this drink and would even pour it from one cup to another from a standing height to get as much froth as possible.





Long distance trade routes sprang up across the area connecting cacao growers with cacao consumers. Cacao soon found itself as a central part of Mesoamerican ceremonies, especially weddings.









How much worth the single cacao bean was in ancient times ?





It was so highly valued that it was used a currency throughout the region, which eventually inspired counterfeiters that molded fake beans out of clay or carved avocado seeds.

To give you an idea of what beans were worth you could buy an avocado for 1 bean, a slave for 100 beans, and a sweet jetski with sick flames on the side for 9000 beans.





So, every time an Olmec, Mayan, or Aztec drank a cup of chocolate, they were drinking money. Like lighting a cigar with a 100 Euro note.









How quest for more chocolate started ?





After their rise to power in the 15th century the Aztecs fell in love with drinking chocolate. But it wouldn’t grow in their highland climate. So, what’s a 15th century chocoholic to do? Invade and demand tribute from cacao growing regions obviously. Once secured, chocolate became a drink reserved for the top echelons of Aztec society, but the military were some of the few commoners allowed to drink it. It was issued to them in wafer form so they could easily mix it with water or maize gruel for an instant nutrition boast.





When the Spanish arrived in the Americas, they quickly invaded the Mayan Yucatán in 1517 and Aztec Mexico in 1519 and with the help of hundreds of thousands of native allies and old-world diseases they conquered and set up New Spain in this now shattered realm. The Mayans had introduced the Spanish to using cacao beans as currency which the Spanish quickly accepted. Getting them to drink it however was a challenge. Europeans initial reaction to chocolate was one of disgust.





The Spanish conquistadors turned colonists also had to grow to like chocolate. At this point it’s important to note that nearly all the Spanish in New Spain were men. So, they had to marry and rely on native women. Women that would have cooked for them and their new children traditional Aztec and Mayan foods. This mixing would create a brand-new mestizo culture, one that drank chocolate.





While this society was emerging another group of influential soon to be chocolate drinkers arrived on the scene, Christian missionaries, and most importantly the Jesuits. In their work trying to convert the natives these missionaries were plied full of chocolate and soon realized how lucrative it might be as a trade item. Once the New Worlders, missionaries, and merchants started crisscrossing the Atlantic with their new chocolate habits and gifting chocolate to their princes and popes the European Spanish eventually shed their apprehension and tried the beverage.





Until the 1590’s chocolate rarely cross the Atlantic. By the 1620’s millions of pounds of it were being imported into Spain. And so chocolate spread upwards from pagan to missionary, from coerced wives to conquistador husbands, all the way until it reached the lips of kings and queens. So, while the beverage was crossing cultural barriers that word chocolate itself was crossing linguistic ones.





Most early Spanish sources call chocolate cacahuatl an Aztec word for cacao-water. The Spanish eventually combined the Mayan word for hot “chocol” and the Aztec word for water “atl” together to form chocolatl, which eventually became chocolate.









Commercialization of Chocolate





So, by the beginning of the 19th century chocolate was an aristocratic drink that conjured up images of Catholic clergy and nobility. But it arrived in the 20th century as something available to most. Coffee and tea however could still be brought in through Asia and so chocolate paved the way for them to overtake it as the bitter caffeinated beverages of choice.





The consumption and production of chocolate declined for the only time in its history. But it’s during this decline that innovators began to tinker with chocolate in order to make it faster to produce and more appealing to all. A Dutchman name by the name of Van Houten, who unfortunately isn’t an owl, invented a press that could remove most of the fat from cacao. Removing this fat or cacao butter made the drink less fatty and easier to mix with water.





Pic Credit : perfectdailygrind









Soon the British company J.S Fry & Sons discovered that adding the cacao butter back into the mix at a later stage made a bar of chocolate that was solid, moldable, and less dry. This first real chocolate bar wouldn’t really be palatable to us. We’ll need the Swiss to perfect it.





The likes of Francois-Louis Cailler and Philippe Suchard were devising better ways of processing chocolate, and a guy named Daniel Peter was trying to combine both milk and chocolate together. He was having trouble separating the water from the milk which was necessary to avoid mildew that was until he joined forces with his neighbor Henri Nestlé who had made a fortune selling powdered milk. Soon milk chocolate was born.





After Rodolphe Lindt invented conching a process that made chocolate much smoother we arrived at the modern chocolate bar. Smooth, milky, and filled to the brim with sugar. This new industrialized form of chocolate quickly dethroned the fatty beverage that once refreshed Emperors and Popes and it was much more widely available.





In 1861 Richard Cadbury introduced the world to the first chocolate box and right after he started selling heart shaped boxes for Valentine’s day, beginning the now inseparable relationship of Valentine’s, Love, and Chocolate. Richard Cadbury was a marketing genius. He knew he needed to sell the emotions and ideals of chocolate rather than just chocolate itself. And if chocolate isn’t associated with the emotions and ideals you want to sell that’s fine.





A medical journal from the era tested food products sold to the public and discovered that over half of the chocolates on sale contain ground bricks and some even had led in there. And while I thoroughly enjoy consuming lead this discovery prompted outrage back then.









Slavery & child labour involved in chocolate production





By the 20th century, chocolate was no longer an elite luxury but had become a treat for the public. Meeting the massive demand required more cultivation of cocoa, which can only grow near the equator.





Pic Credit : apparelmagazine









Now, instead of African slaves being shipped to South American cocoa plantations, cocoa production itself would shift to West Africa with Cote d'Ivoire providing two-fifths of the world's cocoa as of 2015. Yet along with the growth of the industry, there have been horrific abuses of human rights. Many of the plantations throughout West Africa, which supply Western companies, use slave and child labor, with an estimation of more than 2 million children affected. This is a complex problem that persists despite efforts from major chocolate companies to partner with African nations to reduce child and indentured labor practices.





The British colony in modern day Ghana soon followed suit and was quickly joined by the Ivory Coast. Thus, our modern cacao supply chain was born. Today the Ivory Coast and Ghana supply 70% of the world’s cacao. And while slavery was abolished in the Americas by 1875 it is still present in cacao production in West Africa. Journalistic efforts in recent years have done an excellent job at shedding some light on this issue and especially on the problem of child slavery.





In recent years the Fair-Trade certification has gained popularity and promises humane labour practices and fair prices for farmers and while Fair Trade is far from perfect it is providing a possibly less dark future for chocolate and those that grow cacao. It has even helped native Mayans to once again grow and manufacture their own chocolate, so that they can once again take part in the story of chocolate.









Conclusion





Today, chocolate has established itself in the rituals of our modern culture. Due to its colonial association with native cultures, combined with the power of advertising, chocolate retains an aura of something sensual, decadent, and forbidden. Yet knowing more about its fascinating and often cruel history, as well as its production today, tells us where these associations originate and what they hide.





Also, cacao crop that has a dark history of slavery but now has a possible new future with fair trade that could potentially improve the lives of farmers and communities in undeveloped regions. All from a skinny little tree called Theobroma Cacao, literally Food of the Gods.





So, as you unwrap your next bar of chocolate, take a moment to consider that not everything about chocolate is sweet.



