Latin American Chocolate History

The history of chocolate started out in Latin America. It was believed that the first discovered of cocoa was as early as the 900 AD. The cacao grew on trees in the wild. The people to use chocolate were the “Olmec.” Now today it is called southeast Mexico. The time frame that they lived in was in the 1000’s BC. A thousand years later (250-900 AD) the Maya did use chocolate. But, the clearest history of chocolate begins with the Maya. The power of the Mayan was minimizing by the 1400 AD so the Aztecs started to take over. The Aztecs could not grow their own cocoa so they had to trade goods to get beans for exchange. When chocolate made its way into Spain it was considered a healthy food and a medicine. “Doctors prescribed it for curing fevers, …show more content…
But, it made it into the hands of the rich people of Europe first. The first house of chocolate opened up in London in 1657. In Europe Chocolate took off in the 1800s. It took of because “Coenraad Van Houten, a Dutchman, created the cocoa press, which smashed the beans and expelled the cocoa butter (fat), leaving just the cocoa behind. The world’s first solid chocolate was born in 1850s. Then in 1875, Daniel Peter and Henri Nestle decide to add milk to chocolate creating the first milk chocolate bar. All this time in the world wars soldiers got chocolate as a part of their daily food supply. Chocolate has a dark history also. Slaves and child labor still produce much of the world’s chocolate. But, now connoisseurs are buying more Fair Trade and single origin Chocolate. We all know that cocoa has been around for thousands of years, but where did the name chocolate come from? The Aztecs spoke a language called “Nahuatl.” So the drink was called “Cacahuatl,” or “cocoa-water.” Where did the name chocolate come from? The Aztecs spoke a language called “Nahuatl.” So the drink was called “Cacahuatl,” or “coco-water.” They also say that the word chocolate comes from probably from the