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The history of chocolate dates back more than 5,000 years, when the cacao tree was first domesticated in present-day southeast Ecuador. Soon after domestication, the tree was introduced to Mesoamerica , where cacao drinks gained significance as an elite beverage among different cultures including the Maya and the Aztecs .
The cocoa bean, also known as cocoa (/ ˈ k oʊ. k oʊ /) or cacao (/ k ə ˈ k aʊ /), [1] is the dried and fully fermented seed of Theobroma cacao, the cacao tree, from which cocoa solids (a mixture of nonfat substances) and cocoa butter (the fat) can be extracted. Cacao trees are native to the Amazon rainforest.
The source's source says "On the festival eve, cacao beverages were served to the individuals slated to be killed as sacrifices to the god to “comfort them”" "Spanish conquistador Hernán Cortés may have been the first European to encounter chocolate when he observed it in the court of Moctezuma II in 1520."
Despite the objections of Bishop Mariano Marti to these "ridiculous and earthly diversions" when he visited the region in 1784, the festival continued to gain in popularity. [1]: p. 34 The date of the feast, June 25, aligned with the harvesting of the cocoa bean crop, the onset of the wet season and the summer solstice. [13]
Cacao was one of the most important products traded by Maya merchants and it was often treated as currency. Because Ek Chuah is a patron of cacao, owners of cacao groves would hold ceremonies or special festivals in his honor. [4] One of these was held during Muwan, a "month" in the Maya solar calendar or haab'. The presence of this ceremony ...
Cocoa also refers to cocoa powder and cocoa butter, which are two by-products of the cacao bean after it has undergone processing. [33] Cocoa and chocolate processing was first introduced in the country by Commonwealth Foods Inc. (ComFoods) in 1953, while Serg's Chocolate Products Inc. became the first modern chocolate manufacturing plant in ...
Cocoa nibs, more properly known as cacao nibs, come from the beans (or seeds) of the cacao tree. The fruit of the tree is the cacao pod; each pod contains about 20 to 50 cacao beans.
Theobroma cacao (cacao tree or cocoa tree) is a small (6–12 m (20–39 ft) tall) evergreen tree in the Malvaceae family. [1] [3] Its seeds - cocoa beans - are used to make chocolate liquor, cocoa solids, cocoa butter and chocolate. [4] Although the tree is native to the tropics of the Americas, the largest producer of cocoa beans in 2022 was ...