The terminology can be a bit confusing, but most experts today use the term "cacao" to refer to the plant or its beans before processing.
While the term "chocolate" refers to anything made with the beans, explained. "Cacao" 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 beverage made from cacao beans. The Latin name of the cacao tree, Theobroma cacao, means "food of the gods."
In 2007, archaeologists from the University of Pennsylvania announced the discovery of cacao residues in ceramics excavated in Honduras that could date back to 1400 B.C.
Apparently, the sweet pulp of the cacao fruit, which surrounds the beans, fermented into an alcoholic beverage of that era.
It's difficult to determine exactly when chocolate was born, but it’s clear that it has been appreciated from the very beginning.
A sweet currency
For several centuries in pre-modern Latin America, cacao beans were considered valuable enough to be used as currency.
An individual 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 didn’t appear until Europeans discovered the Americas and tried native cuisine.
Legend recounts that Aztec king Montezuma welcomed Spanish explorer Hernán Cortés with a banquet that included drinking chocolate, mistakenly reinterpreted as a divine incarnation rather than an invading conqueror.
Initially, chocolate didn't suit foreigners’ palates; one writer described it as "a bitter drink for pigs," but once mixed with honey or cane sugar, it quickly became popular throughout Spain, and thus worldwide.
