To truly understand chocolate, you must know that during nine-tenths of its long history, chocolate was drunk, not eaten.  Chocolate is made from the cacao tree originally cultivated in Central America by the Mayans and Aztecs.  To them, the beans of the tree were so highly valued that the beans were used as currency when they were not being make into a drink, which the Aztecs called xocoatl (xoco means better, and atl means water).

Brought to Spain in the sixteenth century, it became a popular beverage of the privilege class. The beverage, favored by the Indians, was far removed from today’s chocolate. It was flavored with pepper, pimento and other spices. The Spaniards reduced the proportion of the spices, added some flour and sweetened the drink with honey. As sugar cane began to be cultivated it was combined with cocoa to make the delicious beverage close to what we now know as chocolate. Further experimentation added aromatic spices, vanilla, musk or ambergris to the mix. Hot or cold, the use of chocolate continued to increase. 

Spain proceeded to plant more cacao trees in its overseas colonies in Ecuador, Venezuela, Peru and Jamaica to ensure an ample supply of cocoa beans. Over time, chocolate spread to France, Italy, Germany, Switzerland and England and eventually it became a beverage for all social classes.  It was not until about 1755 that chocolate made its way to North America, at that time still a British colony. Americans have since caught up and are now among the world's largest consumers of chocolate.

With the invention of the cacao press in 1828, the quality of the beverage by squeezing out about half of the cocoa butter (the fat that occurs naturally in cocoa beans) from the ground-up beans, leaving behind a cake-like residue that could be further processed into a fine powder. From then on, chocolate drinks had more of the smooth consistency and the recognizable flavor of those enjoyed today.

The 19th Century witnessed two more revolutionary developments in the history of chocolate. In 1847, an English company introduced the first solid eating chocolate made by combining melted cocoa butter with sugar and cocoa powder. This chocolate had a smooth, velvety texture and quickly replaced the old coarse-grained chocolate, which formerly dominated the world market. The second development occurred in 1876 in Vevey, Switzerland, when Daniel Peter devised a way of adding milk to chocolate, creating the product we enjoy today known as milk chocolate.