In the beginning . . .

For sometime the history of cultivating and drinking chocolate, or to be more precise various mixtures made from cacao beans, has been thought to date back to around AD460 in what is now Guatemala.

However, recent discoveries in northern Belize, show that an early Mayan civilisation were consuming and preparing liquid cacao mixes as early as 600BC.  This discovery leaves “hot chocolate” unchallenged as the world’s oldest non-alcoholic beverage.

Around the early 1500’s, the Aztecs were living in their empire covering central and southern Mexico, from the Pacific to the Atlantic.  Montezuma II was ruling his people from the capital of Tenochtitlan when the invading Spanish conquistadors led by Hernan Cortes arrived.

Chocolatl & Beyond

Cocoa beans and cocoa pods where highly prized by the Aztecs.  Merchants traded them between the humid Mexican basin and the major Aztec cities.

The cocoa was used in ceremonies, including ritual human sacrifice where the heart of the victim was replaced with a cocoa pod: this didn’t do much for their life expectancy or the cocoa!  Cocoa beans were also used as a form of currency and of course consumed, mainly in the bitter and thick maize and cocoa based drink called chocolatl.

It was in this form that Montezuma drank up to 50 mugs a day in order to keep his harem smiling and also where the once common phrase “Montezuma’s revenge” derives from; the ingredients used in the drink acted as a mild laxative.

When Cortes arrived, the Aztecs assumed he was a long awaited god and presented the conquistadors with among things, Chocolatl.  It was because of this presentation that the Spanish decided to take cocoa to Spain where the consumption of chocolate in Europe begun.

At least we can thank Imperialism for something useful although the outcome for Emperor Montezuma II was not so positive.  Poor old Monty was stoned to death by his own people who gradually realised that Cortes was about as far from a saviour god as possible!