Chocolate lovers from all over the world will for ever express their thanks to Christoffel Colombus, who discovered this delicacy for us in the West. During one of his conquests in the New World he met the Aztecs. For many generations, they drank an infusion of grilled seeds and spices. This mixture tasted bitter and rather disgusting and it also contained cocoabeans. The Aztecs adopted the idea of cocoa consumption from the Mayas.

Years before Colombus set foot in America, the Mayas already laid out cocoa plantations on the Mexican peninsula Yucatan. The fruit of the tree was called "cacau" ( afterwards it changed into cocoa, fruit of the cocoa tree ) and the ritual drink "chacau haa" ( hence the word "chocolate" ). Christoffel Colombus took the recipe along with him to Spain, but the Spaniards didn't fall immediately for the bitter, astringent taste of the stimulating beverage.

The success started once they added cane-sugar to improve the taste, the recipe was kept a secret from other European countries for nearly a century ! The rather expensive and consequently exclusive novelty became popular in the highest circles.When doctors pointed out all kinds of healing and therapeutical benefits of the use of chocolate, the success was enormous.

During the 17th century, the chocolate beverage quickly became the fashionable drink all over Europe, although it was limited to the wealthy because of its high price.The London chocolate houses became the trendy meeting places where the elite London society savoured this new luxury beverage. The first chocolate house opened in London in 1657, advertising "this excellent West India drink".

The new product conquered a place in every chemistry. In the nineteenth century cocoa was used as an ingredient in a various number of panacea : a remedy against fatigue to laxative, cocoa did even combat successfully against several venereal diseases !

Some authors recommended chocolate as a healing balm in case of chaps and burns, a protection against the sun, a treatment of the liver and the lungs or as a preventive remedy against snake bites.

Afrodisiacum ? When a theologian in the West in 1624 condemned the consumption of chocolate in religious houses because of its excitable effect, this led to the myth of chocolate as an afrodisiacum. The famous courtisane Madame du Barry had the custom to serve a hot and foaming cup of chocolate to her numerous yearning lovers. The marquis de Sade offered chocolate pastilles filled with " Spanish fly " to the participants of his orgies. Madame de Pompadour indulged too freely in the consumption of chocolate to "warm up her blood" after Louis XV proclaimed that she was frigid. The Aztec emperor Montezuma was the first to recognize the titillating qualities of chocolate. Cocoa had the same effect as its modern equivalent Viagra !

Solid chocolate as we know it today wasn't created until the late 1800's in Europe. In 1870, Swiss manufacturers added milk creating the first milk chocolate. Industrialization in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries have since made chocolate a food for the masses. But despite its availibility people continue to hold onto the notion of chocolate as a special treat.