How was Chocolate discovered and adapted to how it is today?

Answer 1

The Aztec royalty thrived on bitter chocolate drink concocted by mixing ground cacao beans with fermented corn or wine, which was then served in golden cups.Cortés (1485-1547) was much more interested in the golden cups than the liquid inside, although he did note that the Aztecs used cacao beans as money. He wasted no time in establishing cacao plantations. These plantations of “brown gold” paid off, and Spain essentially controlled the cacao bean market into the 18th century.
Cortés introduced the chocolate drink of the Aztecs to the Spanish court. The ladies of the Spanish royalty secretly sipped their spiced and sometimes peppered beverage, keeping it to themselves. In time, the drink was introduced to the upper echelons of European society The industrial revolution introduced mechanization into the manufacturing process of chocolate. When the steam engine began to be used to power chocolate mills, chocolate went from being hand-ground to machine-ground. Chocolate experienced an even greater change in 1828 when the Dutch chemist Coenraad van Houten learned how to separate the cocoa powder and butter from the paste of the ground cacao beans. As a result, innovators later created the precise combination of chocolate liquor (a thick dark paste), cocoa butter, and sugar to produce solid “eating chocolate.”

In the latter half of the 1800’s, the Swiss developed a process that further refined chocolate. In this process, known as conching, the paste of ground beans is passed between porcelain disks for many hours, creating a silky chocolate that melts on the tongue. Connoisseurs claim that the best chocolate is conched for no less than 72 hours.

Many clever entrepreneurs, such as Hershey, Kohler, Lindt, Nestlé, Peter, Suchard, and Tobler—names you may recognize from chocolate boxes today—made significant contributions to the chocolate industry, either by inventing more efficient machinery or by refining chocolate recipes.

Answer 2

The ancient Aztecs and Mayans used to drink a beverage made from cocoa beans mashed with corn and other things.

I believe it was then Columbus, that brought the cocoa beans back to Europe but the Europeans didn't really go for the bitter, spicy stuff that the Aztecs drank. Then some enterprising individual mixed the cocoa beans with sugar and milk to make a chocolate drink that was enjoyed by the Spanish aristocracy.

By the mid 1600's "chocolate makers" were all over Europe selling a crude version of the chocolate drink containing cocoa, sugar and spices and it wasn't until the invention of the cocoa press by the Dutch that chocolate became cheap enough to be sold to the general public.

Finally it was the Swiss that came up with the idea of mixing the chocolate with the cocoa butter which formed a solid mass that would break, but still melt in the mouth.

The rest, as they say, is history.

Answer 3

It was discivered Aztecs but brought to the rest of the world by spanish conquerors.

Answer 4

See attached. Chocolate goes back to the Mesoamerican civilisations. It now contains sugar & fat etc to make it an item of confectionery, it didn't then.

Answer 5

To be honest I haven't a clue, but the person who discovered chocolate deserves a pat on the back and a big well done!!

Answer 6

people used to smoke chocolate