Cocoa history:
When we think or talk about chocolate, the first thing which comes in our mind is something sweet, delicious, packed in a beautiful style. A wide range of variety comes in our mind. Some imagine plain bars and some imagine the chocolate biscuit bars. But the taste we imagine is “sweet”. However, reading the long history of chocolates tells us that “sweet sugar” has to do nothing which chocolate.
90% history of chocolate tells us that it was mainly used as a beverage “a drink” rather than something to “eat”.
The history and basic terminology of chocolate can be a little perplexing. The experts say that the thing we call “cacao” is the raw form and the processed form of cacao is called chocolate. Chocolate is made from cacao beans. No exact time period can be specified when cacao was first discovered however the historians estimated that it is surely from last 2000 years. It can be older but 2000 years are for sure. In early times the Latin name given to cacao was “theobrama” which means “food for the Gods”.
Discovered by probably the natives of South America, people there used to consider that this food is gifted by the God to the Maya. The Maya’s celebrate the cacao God every year in April and exchange gifts as a part of celebration. The Mexicans of early times used to consider that cacao beans are intoxicating and so it was only consumed by the adult males. They also thought that females might develop reproductive problems so it was prohibited. Columbus was the one who discovered cacao bean. European started using it as a source of money as they were not aware of the fact that it can be used as food. Hermando Cortez was the first person who learned about the food nature of cacao. Then in around 1554 they started using cacao as beverage and were served in Spanish court. They used it as a substitute for alcohol. Then they discovered the medicine use of cacao and Western Europe considered it to be a great medicine for many problems.