
History of chocolate: Cocoa pods grow right from the trunk of the cocoa tree! (Thanks World Cocoa Foundation)
Chocolate comes from South America
Chocolate comes from cacao beans, which grew on trees in Central America and South America starting probably about 100 million years ago. Cacao trees may have gotten their start on the lower slopes of the Andes Mountains. Cacao trees can only live in hot, rainy places near the Equator.
Central/South American food
The Andes Mountains
All our South America articles
All our Central America articles

History of Chocolate: Cacao beans (Tom Neuhaus, Project Hope and Fairness)
What do cacao beans look like?
The trees bear large orange fruit, about the size of small pumpkins. You pick the fruit, and many small beans are inside, like peas inside a peapod. The raw beans are really good for you, full of vitamin C and magnesium, but they’re bitter.
The beans also have a fair amount of caffeine in them, like coffee or tea, and can help you work harder than you could without cacao.
When did people start to farm cacao?
The history of chocolate goes back a long way! People probably ate cacao beans as soon as they got to Central America, maybe about 15,000 BC. Cacao grew in the high Andes mountains. By 3000 BC, neighbors of the Valdivia people in Ecuador, and probably their Norte Chico neighbors in Peru, were farming cacao.
Norte Chico people
Valdivia people
Andes mountains

Maya god of cacao, with cacao pods
Cacao spreads to Central America and Mexico
Cacao farming spread quickly north to Central America. By around 2000 BC, pre-Olmec people in what is now Mexico were grinding up the beans and making them into a hot or cold spicy chocolate drink. They made chocolate drinks with vanilla or chili peppers in them. And they made a sort of spicy porridge with corn and chilis in it. Sometimes people sweetened chocolate with honey.
History of honey
Why do bees make honey?
Many people of Mexico, Central America, and South America – the Olmec, the Zapotec, the Moche, the Maya, the Arawak, the Tupi, the Inca, and the Aztecs – liked chocolate. Our word chocolate probably comes from the Aztec phrase cacaua atl which means cacao drink.

Moche clay pot in the shape of a frog climbing a cacao tree (ca. 500 AD)
The Maya and the history of chocolate
By the 600s AD, Maya and Arawak farmers were growing cacao trees instead of picking wild cacao, though Tupi people were probably still gathering wild cacao. Maya people said that the god Quetzalcoatl had brought cacao trees down from heaven and given them to people to farm.
Who were the Arawak?
And the Maya?
Where are the Tupi from?
Aztecs used chocolate as money
During the 1400s AD, the Aztec Empire controlled most of Mexico. The Aztec government made people pay a lot of their taxes in cacao beans. Cacao beans were good for money because they were expensive and you could store them for a long time.
More about the Aztec Empire
The history of taxes
How does money get started?
Chocolate reaches Arizona and Colorado
By this time, Aztec merchants also sold cacao beans to the Pueblo people to their north, in what is now Arizona, New Mexico, and Colorado. Pueblo people lived too far north to grow their own cacao. Cacao became an important trade item. But once the government made people use cacao beans as money, most people couldn’t afford to actually eat them anymore. Then only rich people drank the chocolate drinks.
The Pueblo people (Anasazi)
Spanish explorers taste chocolate
When the Spanish invaded Mexico and the American Southwest in the late 1400s AD, naturally they tried chocolate, because it was a special treat for rich people. They brought it back to Europe with them.
History of chocolate in Europe
Part II: Chocolate comes to Europe
Learn by Doing – Chocolate Mousse Project
Bibliography and further reading about chocolate:
Not that it matters to some but please stop referring to Mexico as Central America or South America, Mexico is part of North America….. Canada, USA and Mexico. Please check your Geography.
Thanks! I’ve tried to catch all times that’s happened, but I guess I missed this one. I’ll fix it now.
I’m quite disappointed that, as a PROFESSOR, you don’t use the correct term for either the plant or the bean that chocolate is made from. COCOA is the PRODUCT. The tree and bean are CACAO.
Sorry about that! I’ve fixed it now.
[…] https://quatr.us/south-america/chocolate-come-south-america.htm […]
[…] https://quatr.us/south-america/chocolate-come-south-america.htm […]
Ok, Karen thank you for responding quickly with good answers, I understand your statement, I will just credit this page where I got the images from thank you for your time.
Karen that’s a little rude saying we are not an image bank, so by saying that, you aren’t trustworthy enough to give credit?
If you think image banks are more trustworthy and upfront than I am, I suggest looking more into how image banks work. What I mean is, I have been maintaining this site for twenty-five years, and I don’t recall where all the images came from, and I am not prepared to spend hours looking it up for free. I could charge for it, but I have other ways I’d rather spend my time, and that’s why there are image banks. Most of these images aren’t in copyright anyway.
Chocolate is too good for this chat, ( Shout out to the Mayans and Aztecs for that)
I’m sorry to see that this article is rife with errors. Valdivia? No, Mayo-Chinchipe on Eastern slopes, not coastal Ecuador. There is currently no evidence for cacao at Valdivia sites, let alone Norte Chico. Cacao is not a quechua word.. I stopped reading there…
I’m sorry about that; as a Mediterranean archaeologist, I’m aware that my grasp of early South American archaeology has many gaps. If you had kept reading, you would have seen that I also gave the Aztec credit for the word, contradicting myself. In any case, I hope this is better, and I promise that if you do read the rest and have other comments, I’d be happy to change things.
Where are the pictures from Karen? I want to do a passion project about chocolate and I need pictures but these arent’ saying where they are from.
Sorry, we’re not an image bank.
Who likes chocolate on a scale to 1 to 10?
… what?
hi alex
Pretty Neat
Hit or miss….. i Geus the never miss huh
Oh yeah yeah
I am happy to join your discussion and to received updates on chocolate.
Chocolate is delicious so get wrecked
HIT OR MISS
Bruh I love chocolate but this I’m ded????????
Sorry it’s hard, Michael! Check it out – there are more pages about chocolate after this one – click on the links at the bottom!
broo chocolate is so good bruh
Omg it’s is tho
ummm cool
Da Heck…
Bro what’s up with u