How Chocolate is Made

O tree, upraised in far off Mexicos, The glory of their golden strands As heavenly nectar from the chalice flows Its Chocolate for other lands.

From ‘Ode to the Chocolate Tree’ By Alonsius Ferronius, a Jesuit (1664)

The eighteenth-century Swedish botanist Linnaeus (Carl von Linne) classified the cocoa tree as Theobrorna cacao, which literally translates as ‘cocoa, food for the Gods’ (Greek theos, a god; broma, food). As a chocolate lover himself, he felt that the simple name ‘cacao’ did not do justice to the noble cocoa tree. The Aztecs, Mayans and Toltecs believed that the cocoa tree was indeed a gift from the Gods. Much ritual and ceremony was involved in its cultivation, from the planting of the seeds to the harvesting. The wild tree is said to have originated in the rich sub-canopy of virgin rain forests in the Amazon and Orinoco basins. As we have seen, it was first cultivated by Mayans on the Yucatan peninsula in Mexico, and traded with the Aztecs who lived in the drier non-cocoa-producing areas of Mexico.