Maya did not sweeten the cacao drink but added spices and crushed chile peppers to make a variety of drinks they prized for their foam.
Cacao played an important role in the economic , ritual and political life of the pre-Hispanic Maya.
They believed the tree belonged to the gods and that the pods growing from the tree were an offering from the gods to man. They Mayans were the originators of a bitter brew made from cacao beans. It was a luxury drink enjoyed by kings and noblemen.
The Maya believed that cacao could cure a variety of ills, including hemorrhoids and nervous tension.
The word cacao beans apparently derived from two Mayan words, ‘kaj’ and ‘kab’ which means ‘bitter’ and ‘juice’ respectively.
Their combination, ‘kajkab’ became ‘kahkah’ in Spanish.
Christopher Columbus, in 1502, reached the island of Guanaja off the coast of Honduras. As legend goes he was greeted by natives that gave him a sackful of cacao beans in exchange for some of his own merchandise.
When Cortes arrived seventeen years later the cacao beans were being used as food and served as a unit of currency and they were an important item of tribute. It was reported that a slave could be bought for one hundred cacao beans. At the time, two hundred small cacao beans were worth one Spanish real.
Cacao in Maya area can be traced back to somewhere between 600 and 400 BC, based on chemical remains from sprouted vessels from Belize.
The Mayan’s ‘cacahuatl’ was a cold beverage prepared without either sugar or milk, but the Spaniards preferred it hot and sweet and mixed with milk.
The Spanish helped develop cacao plantations in Mexico, Ecuador, Venezuela, Peru, Jamaica and Hispaniola (Haiti and the Dominican Republic). Cacao production has since spread all over the world but the cacao from these original regions still produce the most highly prized variety of cacao bean.
Early History of Cocoa
