When in the name of the Spanish crown Cortez landed on the coast of Vera Cruz in 1519 accompanied by hundreds of men and cannons, a magnificently rich culture awaited him in the Aztec capital of Tenochtitlán, now a part of present-day Mexico City, including a beverage that the locals referred to as “Xocolati” (bitter water).

It contained dry, roasted and ground cocoa beans, chilli, cloves, cinnamon and cornmeal as a binding agent for the fatty cocoa butter. On ceremonial occasions up to a thousand cups would be prepared every night.

Records kept by the conquistadors show that, like his male subjects from the upper echelons of society, Emperor Montezuma employed Xocolati as an invigorating drink and aphrodisiac. In fact, cocoa beans were deemed so valuable that they represented an entirely normal means of payment: A rabbit cost four beans, a nocturnal lady visitor was ten and one hundred could buy a slave ...

Decades of tumultuous history followed until the “liquid gold” was also being served in the fine porcelain of European nobility. The official apothecary of Brunswick (Braunschweig) sold the first cocoa in Germany in 1640 and in London, the first chocolate house opened its doors in 1657. Due to extremely heavy taxation at first only the rich were able to afford the luxury beverage. Only at the beginning of the 19th century were less well-off people able to succumb to that bittersweet temptation...

The cocoa tree (Theobroma cacao) now grows in all tropical areas approximately 20 degrees to the north and south of the Equator. In favourable conditions the approx. 6-metre tall tree belonging to the family of the Sterculiaceae produces pods year-round. Initially green, pods change colour as they ripen, from greenish-yellow to red, depending on variety.

After being harvested they are split open with a machete. The sugary white pulp or “pulpa” contains 20 to 50 cocoa seeds – the actual cocoa beans. These are filled into bins and fermented at 45° Celsius. The alcohol this produces kills germs and the bitter taste is removed from the beans. What remains are fermented light brown beans about the size of almonds. When dried in the sun they shrink to about a quarter of the weight harvested and are put into 50 kilo bags and sent by sea to destinations around the world, where they are cleaned, sorted and roasted like coffee.

To make cocoa powder the beans have to be roasted, freed from the shell and germs, chopped, finely ground and then pressed. Doing so produces thick, oily cocoa butter and what remains are “nibs” which are ground into powder, the stuff that chocolate fantasies are made of.

Incidentally, this process owes thanks to a revolutionary discovery by chemist Coenraad von Houten in 1828, making possible the step from drinking chocolate to eating it – creating chocolate heaven with a paradisiacal multitude of varieties, shapes and methods of preparation.

One of the most delicious of these is and remains a cup of hot chocolate – whether it’s Vienna style with dark chocolate melted in hot milk, sugar, a dash of Cognac and dark chocolate shavings, all of it garnished with a topping of whipping cream; or as it’s done in the country where everything began: In Mexico they prefer it with a pinch of ground cloves and half a teaspoon of cinnamon.


Do you like to read more about cocoa? Please read our cooking story "Mad about chocolate" as well!

The following recipes using cocoa are available in our database: