The History of Chocolate

Chocolate is very famous all around the world. Chocolate is very popular nowadays. People eat chocolate in many different forms. We eat chocolate bars, and drink hot or cold chocolate. The chocolate that we eat today has got many things inside, but the cacao bean is very important.

The journey of cacao beans to supermarkets and stores all around the world started hundreds of years ago in Mexico. Cacao trees need hot and humid weather to grow. They normally grow in the Yucatan Peninsula.

The Mayans were a group of people that lived in South America. They lived a long time ago. The Mayans were the first people to eat cacao beans. They picked cacao beans from wild trees. They prepared a big field, and planted and grew their own cacao beans there. They made a drink from the cacao beans. They also used cacao beans for their celebrations. Mayan people travelled to the north and they introduced cacao beans to Aztec people. Soon, cacao beans became very important to the Aztecs, too. They also used it as a drink. They even used it as money. You could buy a rabbit with 10 beans. Aztec people lived in the north. The weather there was different to the weather of the Mayans. Aztecs didn’t grow cacao beans, because their weather was drier.