Terminology can be a bit confusing, but most experts today use the term "cocoa" to refer to the plant or its beans before processing.
While the term "chocolate" refers to anything made from the beans, it explained. "Cocoa" generally refers to cocoa powder, although it can also be a British form of "cacao".
Looking into the past
Etymologists trace the origin of the word "chocolate" to the Aztec word "xocoatl", which referred to a bitter drink made from cacao beans. The Latin name for the cacao tree, Theobroma cacao, means "food of the gods".
In 2007, anthropologists from the University of Pennsylvania announced the discovery of cacao residues in ceramics excavated in Honduras that could date back to 1400 BC.
It appears that the sweet pulp of the cacao fruit, which surrounds the beans, fermented into an alcoholic beverage of that era.
It is difficult to determine exactly when chocolate was born, but it is clear that it has been appreciated from the beginning.
A Sweet Currency
For several centuries in pre-modern Latin America, cacao beans were considered valuable enough to be used as currency.
One bean could be exchanged for a tamale, while 100 beans could buy a good turkey hen, according to a 16th-century Aztec document.
Sweetened chocolate did not appear until Europeans discovered the Americas and tried native cuisine.
The legend says that Aztec king Moctezuma welcomed Spanish explorer Hernán Cortés with a banquet that included drinking chocolate, having mistaken him desperately as a reincarnated deity rather than an invading conqueror.
At first, chocolate did not suit foreigners’ taste buds; one described it in his writings as "a bitter drink for pigs," but once mixed with honey or cane sugar, it quickly became popular throughout Spain, and thus worldwide.
