Where does chocolate originate from?

Question

Where does chocolate originate from?

Answer 1

Heaven.

Answer 2

The bean, cacao, came from Mexico & South America over a thousand years ago.  They would roast the bean and grind it and drink it like coffee. When Spain came in and exploited the people of South America and Mexico, they brought the bean back with them.  It wasn't untill the last few hundered years that sugar was added and a refining process was develeoped.  It was only the very rich that could afford chocolate.

Answer 3

The word "chocolate" comes from the Aztecs of Mexico, and is derived from the Nahuatl word xocolatl, which is a combination of the words, xocolli, meaning "bitter", and atl, which is "water". The Aztecs associated chocolate with Xochiquetzal, the goddess of fertility. Chocolate is also associated with the Mayan god of fertility. Mexican philologist Ignacio Davila Garibi, proposed that "Spaniards had coined the word by taking the Maya word chocol and then replacing the Maya term for water, haa, with the Aztec one, atl." However, it is more likely that the Aztecs themselves coined the term, having long adopted into Nahuatl the Mayan word for the "cacao" bean; the Spanish had little contact with the Mayans before Cortés's early reports to the Spanish King of the beverage known as xocolatl. William Bright (personal communication cited in a 1977 article by Lyle Campbell) noted that the word xocoatl does not occur in early Spanish or Nahuatl colonial sources.

Chocolate has been used as a drink for nearly all of its history. The earliest record of using chocolate pre-dates the Maya. In November 2007, archeologists reported finding evidence of the oldest known cultivation and use of cacao at a site in Puerto Escondido, Honduras, dating from about 1100 to 1400 BC. The residues found and the kind of vessel they were found in, indicate that the initial use of cacao was not simply as a beverage, but the white pulp around the cacao beans was likely used as a source of fermentable sugars for an alcoholic drink. The chocolate residue found in an early classic ancient Maya pot in Río Azul, northern Guatemala, suggests that Mayans were drinking chocolate around 400 A.D.. In the New World, chocolate was consumed in a bitter, spicy drink called xocoatl, and was often flavored with vanilla, chile pepper, and achiote (known today as annatto). Xocoatl was believed to fight fatigue, a belief that is probably attributable to the theobromine content. Other chocolate drinks combined it with such edibles as maize starch paste (which acts as an emulsifier and thickener), various fruits, and honey. In 1689 noted physician and collector Hans Sloane, developed a milk chocolate drink in Jamaica which was initially used by apothecaries, but later sold by the Cadbury brothers.

Chocolate was also an important luxury good throughout pre-Columbian Mesoamerica, and cacao beans were often used as currency. For example, the Aztecs used a system in which one turkey cost one hundred cacao beans and one fresh avocado was worth three beans.

Answer 4

Aztec mexico

Answer 5

the Mayans and Aztecs it wasn't until the Spanish nuns came that they added cream and sugar. when word got back to the pope he threatened to excommunicate if they wouldn't stop making chocolate all day. (he wanted them a their prayers instead of spending all day making lovely chocolate.

Answer 6

the coco bean

Answer 7

The mayans.  But their chocolate was bitter (cacoa is very bitter and chocoalte only becomes sweet when sugar is added to it)

Answer 8

the aztecs in mexico

Answer 9

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.