Cacao Beans Were Money

As we already know, the Aztecs used cacao to prepare a chocolate beverage they loved. But this wasn't the only use of the cacao beans; they used them as currency next to gold dust. The Aztecs had bags of cacao that contained a specific number of cacao grains.

For Peter Martyr to use cacao beans as circulating money was a brilliant idea as it avoided the temptation of avarice: Cacao beans can neither be hoarded for a long time nor easily hidden.

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Where is the original birthplace of the cacao tree?

In the region watered by the Orinoco and the Amazon rivers the cacao tree still grows wild. This country is where cocoa grew originally and where it still does.

It is the same region that the Spanish adventurer Orellano named El Dorado, the City of Gold. This country, the original home of the cacao tree that gives us the alluring chocolate, is the mythical piece of earth that fascinated so many adventurers and dreamers. They all failed to find the gold City, because it was not a reality but a vision. However they did found a different kind of gold: cocoa, the chocolate beverage.

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Chocolate Was The National Drink of the Aztecs

One among the many new things that Columbus brought back to Europe with him was cacao. In 1519, Hernan Cortes landed in Mexico and discovered something he didn't expect: a marvelous city full of palaces. It was the capital of the Aztecs, a wealthy ancient civilization.

The emperor of the Aztecs was Montezuma. He was very fond of the chocolate drink. It is said that he drank no other beverage but chocolatl flavored with vanilla and other spices. The chocolate beverage of the Aztecs had the consistency of honey and it was taken cold. It was served in goblets made of gold and golden spoons too.

It is not known how long the Aztecs knew how to prepare their chocolate beverage from cacao. However, if we read the list of tributes that other cities paid to them, the large amounts of chests of chocolate listed lead us to believe that cacao and chocolate were very important commodities for this ancient civilization.

The cacao pod

When you open a cacao pod you see several beans surrounded by an aromatic pulp. The taste of this pulp is very pleasant, but the beans look unapettizing. Probably the beans were always discarded, that is, until someone had the idea to roast them.

Maybe it was someone from pre-aztecan times, but we don't know. What we do know is that it was someone from the American continents. Some say that chocolate, the cocoa tree, has its origins in today's Mexico, others suggest Central America.

Cocoa, cacao and Theobroma cacao

The Mexicans use the cacao or cocoa commodity since 1500. Cacauatl is how they called the tree from which this divine food is obtained.

In 1735 Linnaeus, the Swedish scientist known as the father of botany, named this American tropical tree Theobroma cacao. This is since then the scientific name for the cacao tree cacauatl

In Greek Theo-broma means Food of the Gods. Why Linnaeus gave such a noble name to it is anybody's guess. However, some suggest that it was because he was extremely fond of the chocolate beverage.

As we can see the name of this species is cacao. But as Englishmen found it difficult to pronounce, it became cocoa.

Chocolate - The Food Of The Gods

There is a lot to be told on the divine roots of chocolate, the food of the gods, as it is sometimes called, and its alluring romantic side.


The conquerors of Mexico, the Spaniards, were the first to introduce cocoa into Europe. And there are a myriad of almost unbelievable tales around chocolate, the intrigues of the Spanish court and the VIPs of that time that met to drink the sweet elixir in coffee and chocolate parlors that were so fashionable in the 17th and 18th centuries.


Vintage chocolate cocoa bean picture

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