Chocolate’s Odyssey: A Journey from Mexico to the World
News Category: News and Food and Drink
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Published January 15, 2022
Mexico is the birthplace of cacao —chocolate was unknown to Europeans before Columbus— and the esteemed bean is an integral part of Mexico’s history
Hernán Cortés was one of the first Europeans to taste xocolatl: the strong, bitter drink taken with prodigious gravitas by the high priests and elite of the Aztec order; they offered him the beverage served in pure gold cups believing that he was a god.
A 3,500-year history that begins in Mesoamerica
But even before then, cacao beans were being fermented and turned into drink by the Olmec, and the Maya who mixed it with vanilla and spices to create a beverage taken during important religious and social ceremonies.
The precise date when humans began consuming cocoa is unclear —recent archaeological evidence suggests that Mesoamericans may have been cultivating the cacao plant and using it to make beverages as far back as 1400 B.C.— but historians agree that cocoa was an important substance held in high regard by our ancestors.
A precious bean also used as a form of currency
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