Over 2000 years ago, the ancient Aztecs and Mayans – God bless ‘em – were the first people to discover the joy of chocolate. Theobroma Cacao, meaning food of the gods, was the name they gave to the cocoa plant believing it came from a divine source. The Mayans began to make cocoa beans into a frothy drink called xocolatl, which means ‘bitter water’. It was far removed from what we now know as hot chocolate. This was a bitter brew made by roasting and grinding the beans together with a little corn and, sometimes, chilli. It was also used in sacrificial rituals and as ceremonial gifts. The beans were so highly cherished that by the 7th century they were used as currency in Mexico.Four cocoa beans might buy you a rabbit and twelve cocoa beans would secure you the services of a courtesan for the night!

The Aztecs preferred their ground cocoa beans in cold water and cocoa was revered for its medicinal properties. Nobility also used it for its potent aphrodisiac qualities. But, rather foolishly, only men were allowed to drink it! Aztec Emperor Montezuma was reported to drink 50 or more golden goblets of xocolatl every day to keep his kingly body in good shape.

Cocoa was first brought back to Spain when Christopher Columbus returned from his fourth voyage to the New World in 1502, but the dark, almond-shaped beans were largely unappreciated by the Spanish Royalty. King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella dismissed cocoa as a bizarre, tribal concoction. It took the Spanish conquistador, Hernán Cortez, who arrived in Central America in 1519, to realise cocoa’s potential.

Emperor Montezuma mistook Cortez for a reincarnation of a former god who had been exiled and offered him gifts of cocoa beans. They didn’t realise that Cortez was after their gold and their mistake eventually allowed the Spanish to overrun the Aztec empire.

Cortez also learned the secret of how to prepare xocolatl. Cortez, who described the drink as ‘the divine drink… which builds up resistance and fights fatigue’, brought the cocoa back to Europe. The recipe for the cocoa drink underwent several changes in Spain where they added cane sugar to sweeten it and newly-discovered spices such as vanilla and cinnamon. They also decided it would taste better served piping hot. Eventually, it became so fashionable that the Aztecs were unable to fill the demand for cocoa, so slaves were brought from Africa to grow it in Brazil, the Caribbean and Africa – which is now the largest producer of cocoa in the world.

The Spanish nobility kept the secret of chocolate to themselves for nearly 100 years before the recipe was introduced to the rest of Europe by missionaries who’d worked in South America. Spanish Princess Maria Theresa gave cocoa beans in an ornate chest as an engagement gift to Louis XIV. Initially, the French Court treated the drink with some scepticism, but it was given the seal of approval by the Paris Faculty of Medicine and Queen Anne of Austria – wife of Louis XIII – made chocolate the rage of the French Court at Versailles. The rest of Europe were soon to extol the virtues of this delicious, health-giving drink.

By 1657 many ‘chocolate houses’ were established in England which served chocolate to the more affluent members of society – the first of which was The Coffee Mill and Tobacco Roll in London. Samuel Pepys wrote in his Diary of enjoying ‘jocalatte’. Another famous chocolate addict was Italian libertine, Casanova, who turned to chocolate for a little help before bedding his many conquests, rating chocolate more highly than champagne for its seductive properties.

As the popularity of chocolate boomed, the English government decided to cash in on the act and imposed an excessive tax on chocolate – a nice little earner which stayed in place for 200 years until Prime Minister Gladstone lowered the unpopular tax.

The trend didn’t catch on in America until over a hundred years later when the first chocolate factory opened in New England. President Thomas Jefferson extolled the benefits of chocolate, citing ‘the superiority of chocolate for both health and nourishment.’ Early chocolate manufacturers such as Ghirardelli and Hershey are still very much in business today.

Chocolate production was revolutionised by the invention of the steam engine in 1770 which enabled the time-consuming hand production methods to be mechanised. It also considerably lowered the cost of preparing chocolate which brought it within the reach of the masses. Then, in 1828 a Dutch chocolatier, Coenraad Johannes Van Houten, invented the cocoa press which did much to improve the quality of the chocolate as it extracted the cocoa butter from the chocolate liquor, leaving behind powered cocoa. A process that’s still known as ‘Dutching’. From then on, chocolate drinks started to resemble those we know today.

In 1824, Quaker, John Cadbury, promoted the benefits of hot chocolate to try to temper the drinking of alcohol in the working classes. Joseph Storrs Fry is credited with creating the first chocolate bar that could be eaten, very similar to the ones we enjoy so much today. Companies such as Cadbury and Lindt were hot on his heels.

It was nearly another fifty years later – and after eight years of experimentation - when Swiss chocolate manufacturer, Daniel Peters, teamed up with the inventors of dried milk, Henri Nestlé, to create the first milk chocolate bars. Until 1880 all chocolate had a rough, grainy texture, then Rodolphe Lindt created a conch-shaped machine to stir the cocoa enriched with an increased amount of cocoa butter, resulting in the smooth, creamy chocolate that we’re familiar with.

While many of these companies went on to become industrial giants, small-scale chocolate production did survive and, in recent times, the interest in eating high-quality chocolate has certainly flourished. Isn’t it in our interests to make sure that they thrive?