When Europeans first tried chocolatl, they found it loathsome and unpleasant. But the name and taste caught on. In the UK today, we spend £3 billion on chocolate every year.

The first known use of the cocoa bean to make a chocolate drink dates back to the Mayan empire which at that time, spread across southern Mexico and Guatemala. It was Christopher Columbus who first brought word of cocoa and chocolate to Europe in the late fifteenth century. However, it was not until Don Cortes brought the actual cocoa beans back to Spain in 1528 that their importance was fully appreciated. Cortes is said to have tasted his first drinking chocolate in a golden goblet in the palace of the Aztec Emperor, Montezuma. A Spanish version of chocolate with added cinnamon, nutmeg and sugar soon became the fashionable drink of the Spanish court. As cocoa beans were in short supply, the secret of chocolate was closely guarded for almost a century.

Now, however, chocolate manufacture is big business around the world. But many of the farmers who grow the cocoa beans receive only a tiny proportion of the profits from chocolate sales. The introduction in recent years of Fair Trade chocolate has helped to redress the balance.

You can find out more about cocoa in the Chokky bikkies activitiy in the schools section.

Photo and information reproduced with kind permission of Cadburys