Archeologists tell us that the Olmecs, the oldest civilization of the Americas (1500-400 BC), were probably the first users of cacao, followed by the Maya, who consumed cacao-based drinks made with beans from their plantations in the Chontalpa region of what is now eastern Tabasco. A drink called 'chocolatl' made from roasted cocoa beans, water and a little spice, was their most important use but cocoa beans were also valued as a currency.

The word chocolate is said to derive from the Mayan word xocoatl; cocoa from the Aztec word cacahuatl. The Mexican Indian word chocolat comes from a combination of the terms choco ("foam") and atl ("water"); as early chocolate was only consumed in beverage form. Chocolate has been drunk as a beverage for thousands of years.

Because cocoa beans were valuable, they were given as gifts at ceremonies such as a child's coming of age and at religious ceremonies. The Maya had many complicated religious beliefs with many gods. Merchants often traded cocoa beans for other commodities, cloth, jade and ceremonial feathers. Maya farmers transported their cocoa beans to market by canoe or in large baskets strapped to their backs, and wealthy merchants, employing porters to carry their wares, ventured as far as Mexico the land of the Aztecs, so introducing them to the much prized cocoa beans.

1502 - Although Christopher Columbus (1451-1506), the first European to taste cocoa in Nicaragua, on his fourth voyage to the New World, returned to Europe with the first cocoa beans, no one knew what to do with them and they were dismissed in favor of other trade goods. By the time the Spanish invaded Mexico in the 16th century the Aztecs had created a powerful empire: their armies were supreme in Mexico.

1519 - The voyage which led Hernan Cortes (1485-1547), Spanish conquistador, to discover Mexico and the Aztec civilization began in 1517 when he set sail from Cuba with 11 ships and 600 men, all seeking fame and fortune in the 'New World'. Landing on the Mexican coast near Veracruz, he decided to make his way to Tenochtitlan to see for himself the famed riches of Emperor Montezuma and the Aztec empire.

It was Montezuma (1466-1520), Emperor of Mexico, who introduced Hernan Cortes to his favorite drink 'chocolatl' served in a golden goblet. American historian William Hickling's History of the Conquest of Mexico (1838) reports that Montezuma "took no other beverage than the chocolatl, a potation of chocolate, flavored with vanilla and spices, and so prepared as to be reduced to a froth of the consistency of honey, which gradually dissolved in the mouth and was taken cold." The fact that Montezuma consumed his "chocolatl" in goblets before entering his harem led to the belief that it was an aphrodisiac. Cortes wrote a letter to Charles V of Spain calling chocolate "The divine drink which builds up resistance & fights fatigue. A cup of this precious drink permits man to walk for a whole day without food." When Cortes returned to Spain in 1528 he loaded his galleons with cocoa beans and chocolate drink making equipment.

1631 - In 1631, the first recipe for a chocolate drink was published in Spain by Antonio Colmenero de Ledesma, an Andalusian physician, in his book, Curioso tratado de la naturaleza y calidad del chocolate (A Curious Treatise of the Nature and Quality of Chocolate). This was the first work to deal exclusively with chocolate and cacao. Don Antonio is said to have lived for some time in the West Indies. Since he was a doctor, he pays a great deal of attention to the dietary aspects of chocolate and was concerned with the psychological as well as the physical effects of the drink. He says, "Chocolate is healthy. It makes the drinker 'Fat, and Corpulent, faire and Amiable'. It was an aphrodisiac. In women it caused fertility but eased delivery, etc., etc." The ingredients in the recipe were:

"Take one hundred cocoa beans, two chillies, a handful of anise seed and two of vanilla (two pulverized Alexandria roses can be substituted), two drams of cinnamon, one dozen almonds and the same amount of hazelnuts, half a pound of white sugar and enough annatto to give some color. And there you have the king of chocolates."

1643 - It didn't take long for Spaniards to begin heating the mixture and sweetening it with sugar. Soon 'chocolate' became a fashionable drink enjoyed by the rich in Spain. As the Spanish royalty intermarried with other European Royalty, cocoa was given as a dowry. In 1643, when the Spanish Princess Maria Theresa (1638-1683), was betrothed to Louis XIV (1638–1715) of France, she gave her fiancé an engagement gift of chocolate, packaged in an elegantly ornate chest. A royal chocolate maker was appointed and chocolate drinking became the rage.

1648 - Thomas Gage (1603-1656), an English Dominican friar and traveler, tried to intervene with the Bishop of Chiapas, Mexico over the congregation drinking chocolate during services. The women were fond of chocolate and turned church services into a coffeehouse. The Bishop tried to end this, and was consequently found dead. Poisoned chocolate was sent to the Bishop and Thomas Gage fled Chiapas. The rumor was that the women, who so hated the Bishop for this restriction, poisoned him with chocolate, hence the proverb "Beware the chocolate of Chiapa." Eventually, in 1662, Pope Alexander VII put a final solution to the affair when he declared "Liquidum non frangit jejunum." Translated it means "Liquids (including chocolate) do not break the fast."

In his 1656 book, Travels in the New World, Thomas Gage devotes an entire chapter to chocolate and tells how the women of the city of Chiapas, Mexico were excommunicated by the bishop because "they would not give up sipping their cups of chocolate to sustain them during high mass."

1657 - By the 1700s, "Chocolate Houses" were all the rage, as popular as coffee houses. The first "chocolate house" opens in London in 1657. These places were precursors of our present day cafes and bars, and they were frequented by politicians, writers and socialites.

It took nearly a century for the news of cocoa and chocolate to spread across Europe as the Spanish kept it a closely guarded secret. From the middle of the seventeenth century onwards, chocolate also enjoyed great success in Great Britain, especially after the conquest of Jamaica, which gave the British direct access to cacao production. By the end of the 18th century, London's chocolate houses began to disappear, many of the more fashionable ones becoming smart gentlemen's clubs.

1700 - After chocolate was introduced in England, milk was added to the after dinner treat.

1785 - Thomas Jefferson was to become a great lover of the stuff. In a letter to John Adams in 1785, he wrote, "The superiority of chocolate, both for health and nourishment, will soon give it the same preference over tea and coffee in America which it has in Spain."

SOURCES:

Ancient Chocolate Found in Maya "Teapot", By Bijal P. Trivedi, National Geographic Society, July 17, 2002, http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2002/07/0717_020717_TVchocolate.html, an internet web site.

Chocolate: an illustrated history, Morton, M. & Morton, F. Crown Publishers, 1986

Gage, Thomas, by Hether Sebens, The Historical Text Archive, http://historicaltextarchive.com/sections.php?op=viewarticle&artid=451, an internet web site.

International Cocoa Organization, http://www.icco.org/menuicco.htm, an internet web site.

When The Church Said "No" to Chocolate, by Ann Ball, Mexico Connect, http://www.mexconnect.com/mex_/travel/aball/aachocchurch.html, an internet web site.

The True History of Chocolate, by Sophie D. Coe and Michael D. Coe, published by Thames and Hudson Ltd, London, 1996.

Cacao, Theobroma cacao, is a tropical evergreen tree in the family Byttneriaceae. It is native to Central and South America and is cultivated extensively for its seed, which is the source of COCOA, CHOCOLATE, and cocoa butter. Cacao is a wide-branched evergreen that grows up to 7.5 m (25 ft) tall and bears seedpods up to 30 cm (1 ft) long and 10 cm (4 in) thick, with a hard leathery shell. Pods contain as many as 40 seeds, or beans, some up to 2.5 cm (1 in) wide.

Several species of Theobroma are cultivated in tropical America. T. cacao, the principal species used for cocoa, is grown throughout the wet, lowland tropics, especially in south-east Asia, South America, and West Africa, where the trees are planted under the shade of taller trees. They usually bear fruit 4 years after they have been planted. Workers harvest cacao beans with knives. After extraction from the fruit, the beans are placed in piles, covered with banana leaves, and allowed to ferment; afterward they are dried to prevent molding. They are then sacked and shipped to chocolate or cocoa manufacturers. Cacao beans were once used as money by the people of Mexico and Central America

Cocoa is finely pulverized de-fatted, roasted CACAO kernels, to which natural and artificial spices and flavors may be added. It is commercially manufactured by pumping hot CHOCOLATE liquor (semi-liquid ground cacao kernels) into hydraulic cage presses where, under extreme pressure, part of the fat, or cocoa butter, is removed. The fat content of cocoa varies from less than 10% to 22% or more for breakfast or high fat cocoa. Cocoa may be Dutch-processed by mild alkali treatment to change and darken color and improve flavor. Cocoa is the flavoring ingredient in many confections, baked goods, ice creams, puddings, and beverages. It is also used to flavor some tobaccos and pharmaceuticals. There is a difference between hot cocoa and hot chocolate. The terms are often used interchangeably, but technically they are as different as white chocolate and bittersweet chocolate. Hot cocoa is made from cocoa powder, which is chocolate pressed free of all the fat of cocoa butter.

HOW IS CHOCOLATE MADE?

Workers cut the fruit of the cacao tree, or pods open and scoop out the beans. These beans are allowed to ferment and then dry. Then they are cleaned, roasted and hulled. Once the shells have been removed they are called nibs. Nibs are blended much like coffee beans, to produce different colours and flavours. The manufacture of chocolate begins with a thorough cleaning of the beans. Beans are blended to achieve delicate nuances of flavour and then roasted. When cooled, the cacao beans are broken and winnowed by separating the nib from the shell in an air current. The waste shell is totally removed. The clean, cool cacao nib is ground under rotating stones, discs, or rollers. The resulting chocolate liquor, more than 50 percent fat (cocoa butter), is liquid above 32 deg C (90 deg F).

With a proper mix of chocolate liquor, sugar, cocoa butter and milk solids (for milk chocolate) the production of chocolate begins. These ingredients, automatically weighed and conveyed to large mixers with S-shaped blades are thoroughly blended and then conveyed to large five-roll refiners. These heavy machines with rollers from 100 to 150 cm long and 30-40 cm in diameter, crush the mixture four times. The particles are reduced to microscopic fineness to produce the smoothness typical of eating chocolate.

The chocolate is then conched, a unique process that completely mixes the chocolate at high temperatures: 54-71 deg C, while exposing it to a blast of fresh air. During conching, complex chemical changes take place that further develop the chocolate's delicate flavour. The addition of vanilla or other natural / artificial flavours provides a further flavour note. Lecithin, an emulsifier derived from the soybean, is also added; this establishes the precise viscosity necessary for proper flow in moulding or coating. From there different varieties of chocolate are produced.

Although cocoa is largely produced in developing countries, it is mostly consumed in industrialized countries. For cocoa, the buyers in the consuming countries are the processors and the chocolate manufacturers. A few multinational companies dominate both processing and chocolate manufacturing. The following graph represents the main consumers of cocoa, based on the apparent domestic cocoa consumption, which is calculated as grindings plus net imports of cocoa products and of chocolate products in beans equivalent.

Main consuming countries in 2003/04

Source: UNCTAD based on the data from International Cocoa Organization, quarterly bulletin of cocoa statistics

The cocoa tree is thought to have originated in the Amazon basin, spreading to Central America, particularly Mexico. It was known and used by the natives in this region, for example the Olmec and the Mayas and was considered as the "food of the gods". In particular, cocoa seeds were used as currency by the Aztecs who also enjoyed a type of bitter chocolate drink. Christopher Columbus discovered cocoa beans in America, but the beans did not become popular in Europe at the time. Some 20 years later, Hernando Cortes discovered the bitter drink used by the Aztecs and sent the beans and recipes back to King Charles V. The Spanish refined the recipes adding sugar and heating the ingredients to improve the taste.

By 1828, the cocoa press was developed, allowing the extraction of cocoa butter. Later on (around 1879), the Swiss developed both milk chocolate and solid chocolate.

Description - technical characteristics

The cocoa tree (Theobroma cacao L. of the Sterculiaceae family) is usually a small tree, 4 to 8 meters tall, although when shaded by large forest trees it may reach up to 10 meters in height. The stem is straight, the wood light and white and the bark is thin, somewhat smooth and brownish. The fruit (pods) reach up to 15-25 cm in length. Each pod contains about 30 to 40 seeds, which after drying and fermentation are known as cocoa beans. The seeds are reddish-brown externally and are covered by a white, sweet pulp.

For ideal production, cocoa trees need rainfall between 1,150 and 2,500 mm per year and temperatures between 21°C and 32°C.

There are three varieties of cocoa trees. The most common is Forastero, which accounts for 90% of the cocoa beans produced in the world. It is found widely in West Africa and Brazil. The second group is the Criollo, which produce "fine and flavor" beans, mostly grown in parts of the Caribbean, Venezuela, Papua New Guinea the West Indies, Sri Lanka, East Timor and Java. Finally, there is the Trinitario variety, which is a cross from Criollo and Forastero

Hot cocoa tops red wine and tea in antioxidants - may be healthier choice

There's sweet news about hot cocoa: Researchers at Cornell University have shown that the popular winter beverage contains more antioxidants per cup than a similar serving of red wine or tea and may be a healthier choice.

The study adds to growing evidence of the health benefits of cocoa and points to a tasty alternative in the quest to maintain a diet rich in healthy antioxidants, chemicals that have been shown to fight cancer, heart disease and aging, the researchers say....

(Download a .PDF of this article by clicking here.)

Cocoa and Cosmetics

Chocolate is becoming an increasingly popular ingredient for a wide variety of products in the estimated $13 billion personal pampering market, including shampoos and conditioners, body care products, bath scents and scented candles.

"We find that many consumers can derive similar pleasure from chocolate- based products when they are smelled as when they are eaten," said Myriam Delvaux, skin care segment leader, Dow Corning. "Scents and textures in personal care products can often provide the chocolate satisfaction without the guilt of consuming the calories."

Used for thousands of years as medicine by tribes in Central and South America before being used as a drink and eventually as the basis for chocolate candy, cocoa contains more than 300 chemicals, and has been the subject of numerous scientific studies. Some scientists theorize that cocoa contains molecules that can stimulate the release of endorphins and increase theta brain waves when smelled, resulting in relaxation.

Dow Corning's first chocolate-inspired formulation came in 2004 when the company introduced Chocolate Delight, a fluffy face care formulation with the texture and aroma of chocolate mousse. The prototype formulation was developed using a Dow Corning elastomer powder to provide a softer skin feel and better absorption. It also incorporates Vitamin E to reduce the appearance of wrinkles and a sunscreen agent to protect skin from the elements.

Last month, Dow Corning worked with Solabia Group to develop a prototype formulation for CocoaSlim, a recipe that combines chocolate mousse with skin cream to leave skin silky smooth with a pleasant cocoa scent. Solabia's formulation contains Dow Corning silicone waxes, fluids and powders for texture and skin feel benefits, and an active ingredient from Solabia Group that limits fat storage.

"These are examples of how our silicone materials can be used for very creative, innovative and trendy skin care formulations," said Delvaux. "The more the effects of cocoa and chocolate are researched, the more we learn about how to formulate luxurious products that not only address body needs but also emotions."

Dow Corning (http://www.dowcorning.com/ ) provides performance-enhancing solutions to serve the diverse needs of more than 25,000 customers worldwide. A global leader in silicon-based technology and innovation, offering more than 7,000 products and services, Dow Corning is equally owned by The Dow Chemical Company and Corning, Incorporated. More than half of Dow Corning's annual sales are outside the United States.

Cocoa Factoids, Definitions & History

We have done our best to categorize these facts, feel free to disagree if you're adamant send us an email.  Who knows we may change it.

Medical

• Magnesium helps to metabolize the sugar in chocolate.
• Dark chocolate is the healthiest disease fighting choice.
• A typical dark chocolate bar contains significantly fewer calories and carbs than milk chocolate.
• Although Dark Chocolate contains saturated fat that’s believed to increase LDL, or “bad” cholesterol, new studies reveal that dark chocolate doesn’t raise LDL levels.  Its high stearic acid content is actually thought to lower serum cholesterol levels.
• The flavonoids found in dark chocolate can help us maintain a healthy heart.
• A cup of hot cocoa is effective for curbing coughs. A compound found in cocoa, theobromide, can help minimize that tickle in your throat.
• Dark chocolate contains magnesium, known to help regulate blood pressure, reducing the risk of heart disease.  Magnesium also helps to metabolize the sugar in the chocolate – a good double whammy.
• The flavonoids found in dark chocolate can help you maintain a healthy heart.
• Cacao beans contain the highest levels of antioxidants of any plant source. An average serving of hot cocoa has less caffeine than a cup of decaffeinated coffee.

Definitions & Terms

• Store cocoa powder away from herbs and spices so it doesn’t pick up their flavor.
• In the US there are two types of cocoa-natural and Dutch processed. 1) Natural is unsweetened cocoa powder.  2) Dutch-processed cocoa contains alkalis to reduce the natural acidity of cocoa powder.
• Hot gourmet cocoa mixes will remain fresh about two years if kept tightly sealed and away from light.
• The cacoa tree is a tropical, evergreen tree that grows between 20 to 30 feet high.
• Cacoa pods are shaped like elongated acorn squash which turn a reddish or purplish yellow color when ripe.
• A cacoa tree begins to bear pods when it is 4 or 5 years old.
• A mature cacoa pod weighs about one pound when ripe.
• Each pod contains 30 to 50 almond shaped seeds or “cocoa beans”.
• In Europe, especially France, chocolate and hot cocoa are much less sweet than those consumed in the US.
• Dark chocolate is catching up with wine as a signifier of gourmet taste .So treat your self to a mug of hot cocoa.
• Gourmet cocoa mixes (Pure Decadence comes to mind) will remain fresh and flavorful if kept tightly sealed and stored away from light.
• Most people swallow hot cocoa rather than taste it. Tasting is an exercise in slowing down the process of swallowing and allowing yourself to savor the chocolate flavor and experience its pleasure.
• Chocolate contains more than 500 flavor components, twice the amount found in strawberry or vanilla.
• Our sense of smell directly affects our sense of taste.  You smell each time you breathe giving you the opportunity to smell Pure Decadence Rich Dark Cocoa 23,040 times a day.
• Your mouth experiences flavor in waves: sweetness within 2 seconds, salty and sour within 3 to 7 seconds and bitterness within about 5 seconds.

Historical

• Richard Cadbury invented the first “chocolate box”.
• Cocoa beans were used as currency.  Merchants traded the beans for other commodities such as cloth, gems and woven baskets.
• The United States is the largest consumer of cocoa and chocolate.
• Americans bought $14 million worth of chocolate in 2003.

Agriculture

• About half of the world’s cocoa beans are grown on the Gold Coast in Africa.
• The cacao tree’s botanical name, Theobroma, means “food of the gods”.
• Good cocoa begins with good beans. If you prefer cocoa that has a coffee flavor, the beans may come from West Africa- for floral flavors-Ecuador, for fruity flavors-Venezuela, and for citrus flavors-Madagascar

Glossary of Terms

Words that all chocoholics should be familiar with!

• Cacao beans - The basis for chocolate which comes from cacao tree pods.
• Cocoa butter - The natural fat found in cacao beans.
• Cocoa nibs - What remains after cocoa beans have been cleaned, cracked, and roasted.
• Chocolate liquor - What results when cocoa nibs are heated and ground - also referred to as bitter, unsweetened, or cooking chocolate.
• Cocoa powder - Chocolate liquor processed to eliminate fat. Cocoa powder must contain 10 to 22 percent cocoa butter.
• Dark chocolate - A term used for sweet, semi-sweet, or bittersweet chocolate.
• Sweet chocolate - Chocolate processed with 15 to 35 percent chocolate liquor plus added sweeteners.
• Semi-sweet chocolate - Chocolate containing more liquor than sweetener.
• Milk chocolate - Chocolate which contains more milk fats and solids than dark chocolate.
• White Chocolate - Cocoa butter mixed with other ingredients-But no chocolate liquor.
• Bloom - A white film that appears on chocolate when it is exposed to excessive moisture or temperature variations. The film does not affect the taste and is safe to eat.