Origins: South America

So let's start from the beginning: the cocoa bean.

The official name for the tree from which cacao beans are from is Theobroma Cacao. It only grows within about twenty degrees of the equator, in places mainly in South America, parts of West Africa, and even in parts of Asia. There are three varieties of cacao beans: Forastero, Criollo, and Trinitario. Forastero—originating from the Amazon region of South America—is the most common of the three types, and makes up about 90% of the world’s chocolate production. It is known to be the most “robust” of the three kinds of cacao beans.

Criollo is the rarest type of cacao bean, and is described as:

“What the fine Arabica bean is to coffee, the even and finer Criollo bean is to chocolate…[Criollo] has a distinctly reddish colour, and an equally distinctive complex taste which can include flavours of caramel, nuts, vanilla and tobacco,” (The Chocolate Revolution, 2013).

To borrow from the Arthurian Legends, for any devout chocoholic, the Criollo bean would be considered the "Holy Grail" of cacao beans because of its rarity and unique flavor. The Criollo bean has become increasingly rare because of its inability to ward of diseases that plague it.

Trinitario is a hybrid between the Forastero and the Criollo bean. As the name suggests, the Trinitario bean originated in Trinidad, a neighboring country to Venezuela. Criollo trees from Venezuela had been planted around 1678 in Trinidad, but around 1727, the trees developed a fungus that killed them. One theory is that the trees became increasingly sensitive to the soil in Trinidad, and could not adapt to the new environment. In 1756, the Forastero trees from the Amazon were introduced to the area, and the failing Criollo trees were crossed with the more robust breed. The new variety of cacao tree spread across the South American equator.

It is said that cacao beans were used by the ancient Mesoamerican peoples. The Maya and the Aztec are the most well known for their use of cacao beans, but there are certain sources that say there was an earlier indigenous tribe—the Olmecs—that used them as well. Known as the “food of the gods”, chocolate was used for everything from daily sustenance for the indigenous elite, to welcoming the conquering Spanish with a banquet fit for the gods.

Chocolate did not come in shiny bricks, or wrapped in foil with a sleek label stamped on it. The ancients would harvest the cacao nuts with long knives and extract the seeds from the inner pulp. After separating the seeds from the pulp (which is also edible, and supposed to taste pretty good itself), women would roast the cocoa seeds, grind them into a paste, and make the paste into cakes. When the cocoa was ground, spices like chili peppers and vanilla were added to the concoction.               

These cakes were not the sugary confections we’ve all come to know and love. They would have been small, round, maybe mounded pieces that they would prepare and carry with them as sustenance on long journeys, or to dissolve in water to prepare the ancients’ version of hot cocoa. When the cake was added to the water and dissolved, the drink would be poured from one container to another until a foam formed on the top of it. Cocoa was consumed hot or cold and the cakes would also be used as the bases for soups and gruels...a type of porridge.

Upon Hernando Cortez's conquest of the Aztec city Tenochtitlan--modern day Mexico City--he sampled the local cocoa drink, as he saw the Aztec chief,  Motecuhzoma, "drinking fifty flagons of chocolate a day," (Spadaccini, 2013). But the Conquistador considered the drink to be too bitter, but wrote back to King Carlos I of Spain, saying that the xocoatl--the original name for chocolate--was, "a drink that builds up resistance and fights fatigue," (Spadaccini 2013). At one point, it was even described as being better suited for pigs than human consumption.

Cocoa beans were also used as a form of currency among the Maya and the Aztecs. Ferdinand Columbus--son of Christopher Columbus--documented an interaction with some natives off the coast of Guanaja, an island near current-day Honduras:

The canoe was stocked with, "...those almonds which in New Spain are used for money. They seemed to hold these almonds at great price; for when they were brought on board ship together with their goods, I observed that when any of these almonds fell, they all stooped to pick it up, as if an eye had fallen," (Moss and Badenoch, 2009).

Of course, because this was only documented by the conquistadors, there is really no true explanation, from a native's perspective, about whether cacao beans were used as a monetary system, or if was simply a barter and trade system for various goods. History is always written by the victors.

(2013). The Chocolate Revolution: The Cocoa Bean. http://chocolate-revolution.com/beans.php   

Moss, S.; Badenoch, A. (2009). Chocolate: A Global History. London: Reakton Books Ltd.

Spadaccini, J. (2013). The Sweet Lure of Chocolate. San Francisco, CA: Exploratorium