Chocolate, or cocoa, is a food made from roasted and ground cacao seed kernels that is available as a liquid, solid, or paste, either on its own or as a flavoring agent in other foods. Cacao has been consumed in some form for at least 5,300 years starting with the Mayo-Chinchipe culture in what is present-day Ecuador. Later Mesoamerican civilizations also consumed chocolate beverages before being introduced to Europe in the 16th century.
Chocolate in its most common forms: powder and bars
Image from a Maya ceramic depicting a container of frothed chocolate
Mexica. Man Carrying a Cacao Pod, 1440–1521. Volcanic stone, traces of red pigment. Brooklyn Museum.
"Traités nouveaux & curieux du café du thé et du chocolate", by Philippe Sylvestre Dufour, 1685 ("New and curious treatises of coffee, tea and chocolate")
The cocoa bean or simply cocoa, also called cacao, is the dried and fully fermented seed of Theobroma cacao, the cacao tree, from which cocoa solids and cocoa butter can be extracted. Cocoa trees are native to the Amazon rainforest. They are the basis of chocolate and Mesoamerican foods including tejate, an indigenous Mexican drink.
Pods at various stages of ripening
Beans in pulp in freshly cut pod
Beans: In pulp, in skin, and naked
Roasted nibs (pieces of kernels) are generally powdered and melted into chocolate liquor, but also inserted into chocolate bars to give additional "crunch".
