The history of chocolate reveals that the creamy and tasty bars wrapped in foil have a long history. Well, not in today’s familiar form. All products of cacao origin have a rich and storied history that will leave many in awe.
The first documented mention of chocolate dates back to the Olmecs, around 1500-400 BC. To the Olmecs, cacao was just appropriate for making spiced and bitter ceremonial drinks. In this piece, you’ll get to learn about the transformation of this unrefined drink into a flavorful commodity craved around the world.
Origins in Ancient Mesoamerica
The Mayans, Aztecs and Olmecs were the three major civilizations of ancient Mesoamerica. There is still archaeological evidence of these ancient tribes in present-day Mexico. However, the Olmecs were the first cultivators of the cacao plant and the first to identify its culinary vitality. A popular narrative among historians is that the Olmecs observed the reckless abandon with which rats consumed cacao beans and concluded that it must be very nutritious.
Before long, the Olmecs began crushing dry cacao beans, mixing them with water and adding some spice. The resulting bitter concoction was passed around during their ancient religious ceremonies.
By 600 BC, the neighboring Mayans caught on in the cultivation of cacao beans on the Mexican delta. By 400 AD, when the Aztecs successfully developed methods of cultivating the symbolic plant, cacao had become a commercial commodity. The beans were so precious that the ancient Mexicans eventually made them a medium of exchange. However, as popular as the commodity became at the time, its culinary vitality was only accessible to the elites, who sometimes consumed it as an aphrodisiac. A 21st-century analogy would be to think of a wealthy person wrapping a ‘joint’ with $100 bills.
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Arrival in Europe
In the 16th century, during the final phase of Christopher Columbus’s transatlantic voyage, he chanced on cacao beans. He saw it on a boat during a hiatus in Nicaragua, but didn’t think much of it.
Fun fact: ‘Cacao’ and ‘cocoa’ are similar food items, albeit with differing levels of processing. Cacao is raw, or minimally processed, beans or pods of the cacao tree. Meanwhile, cocoa refers to beans that have undergone considerable processing. Cocoa is often more bitter due to the rigorous roasting, while cacao is perceived as more nutritious.
However, it was a Spanish crusader who would eventually introduce the ancient Mayan chocolate to Europe. This crusader, Hernándo de Cortés, explored the Americas and conquered the Aztecs around 1528. He was quick to notice that the Aztec emperor Montezuma had a habit of taking a beverage called ‘xocolatl.’ Cortés tried the beverage, finding it amenable and sent some cacao beans back to Spain.
It was in Spain that the chocolate cultural history, as we know it today, began. The Spaniards sweetened the spiced, bitter beverage, making it popular among local elites. Before the end of the 16th century, Mesoamerica became a steady supplier of cacao beans to Spain. Cortés furnished this trade by improving the cultivation of cacao in colonial Spain. Around this period, he also introduced the crop to the islands of West Africa. After cacao cultivation spread to the hinterlands of Africa, the continent would later become the top supplier of the beans.
However, tracing out the chocolate history timeline, it becomes glaring that the Spaniards kept their discovery of ancient Mayan chocolate secret. The history of chocolate reveals that the cacao trade did not spread to other parts of Europe until the 17th century.
Industrial Revolution and Mass Production
After the cacao trade became patent-free in Europe, people became adventurous and came up with a myriad of recipes. For example, the English were the first to make chocolate lozenges in 1674. The Swiss mixed milk into the chocolate formula in the early 19th century, and tried hazelnuts later on. The Dutch started making cocoa powder in 1828 by separating the cocoa butter from the beans. Nonetheless, cacao was still for the aristocracy during the 17th and 18th centuries evolution of chocolate.
However, Coenraad Johannes van Houten’s invention of the cocoa hydraulic press in 1828 ushered in the industrial and commercial era of the product. Fry & Sons went a step further to produce the first batch of solid chocolate bars in 1846. These innovations made chocolate production easy and the products cheap. Slowly, chocolate bars and lozenges became affordable for average people.
Soon, other industries would spring up across Europe to stamp their names on the chocolate history timeline. This blend of culinary innovations took the ancient chocolate drink and transformed it into shelf-stable cocoa products.
It was during this industrial era of the evolution of chocolate that industry giants like Hershey, Nestlé and Cadbury broke ground.
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Modern Chocolate Industry
The history of chocolate has come a long way. From the cacao-spiced beverages being used for ancient Mayan rites, to multinational conglomerates thriving on the now global cash crop. Interestingly, globalization is shaping modern cuisines more than most people would admit. Today, cacao cultivation is no longer limited to the Americas. Similarly, different varieties of cacao products are now household names around the world.
Without digging deep into cacao history, it is easy to mistake Africa as the fount of the cash crop. However, the scramble to colonize Africa between the 19th and 20th centuries brought with it the commercial cultivation of cacao. Colonists established major cacao plantations in the Ivory Coast, Nigeria and Ghana in the late 19th century.
While West Africa has supplied Europe’s demand for cacao beans since then, there have been a few ethical issues raised about modern chocolate origins. Also, in 2025, the chocolate manufacturers grappled with a global cacao scarcity. Low output from West Africa, as droughts and aging trees cause harvests to flag, caused prices to go to an all-time high. In early 2025, a kilogram of cacao beans sold for $10.75, making it the commodity’s highest pricing since 1965. Producing chocolate became so expensive in 2025 that renowned brands like Nestlé considered using cacao fruit pulps and even some portion of the pods to augment bean shortages. The Aztecs used cacao beans as ancient currency; it’s still a formidable commodity in the 21st century.
Most people would have passed if the fate of discovering chocolate weighed on their shoulders. Imagine tasting a bitter and spicy brown beverage, served at a Mayan religious ceremony. But the same people would agree that the flavorful chocolate bar is one of their foremost cravings.
Every bite of chocolate carries 3,000 years of history, a story of flavor, power, and transformation.
