The History of Chocolate

The tasty secret of the cacao tree was discovered more than 2,000 years ago in the tropical rainforests of the Americas. The pods of this tree contain seeds that can be processed into chocolate. The story of how chocolate grew from a local Mesoamerican beverage into a global sweet encompasses many cultures and continents.

The first people known to have made chocolate were the ancient cultures of Mexico and Central America. These people, including the Maya and Aztec, mixed ground cacao seeds with various seasonings to make a spicy, frothy drink. Until the 1500s, when the Spanish conquistadors brought the seeds back to Spain, no one in Europe knew anything at all about the delicious new drink that would eventually sweep the world.

Since then, new technologies and innovations have changed the texture and taste of chocolate, but it still remains one of the world’s favorite flavors. Before the Industrial Revolution, chocolate was a gritty and oily paste, usually dissolved in water or milk and made into a beverage. But the invention of new machines made it possible to create smoother, creamier chocolate in the form of an edible candy bar.

One of the most important inventions was the cocoa press, created in 1828 by the Dutch chemist Coenraad Van Houten. The press squeezed out cocoa butter (leaving the powder we call cocoa) and made cocoa more consistent and cheaper to produce. In 1815, Van Houten added alkaline salts to powdered chocolate, which helped it to mix better with water and gave it a darker color and milder flavor. Daniel Peter and Henri Nestlé teamed up in 1875 to introduce condensed milk to chocolate. Their smooth, creamy “milk chocolate” rapidly became a popular favorite.

Over the years, many creative confectioners developed lots of new varieties and flavors of chocolate. A few icons of the early 1900s still survive today. Hershey got his start making chocolate-coated caramels in 1893. The father-and-son team of Mars, created the malted-milk-filled Milky Way, after an inspiring trip to the local drugstore soda fountain.

Most of us know chocolate as a deliciously decadent sweet that we eat in cookies, cakes, candy bars, and other desserts. But chocolate isn’t simply a snack or key ingredient in cooking. Over the centuries, many cultures have used the seeds from which chocolate is made as a sacred symbol in religious ceremonies. Even medicinal remedies featuring chocolate have been used as household curatives across the globe.