The Chocolatiest Hot Chocolate
Did you know that the earliest evidence of a chocolate drink was as early as 500BC with the Mayans? Some say it even predates them! To make the (allegedly) first chocolate drink, the Mayans would ground cocoa beans into a paste and mixed it with water, cornmeal, chili peppers, and other ingredients. They poured the drink from a cup to a pot back and forth until it developed a thick foam. It was served cold. Chocolate was available to all social classes, but the wealthy drank from fancy vessels that they were buried with. Sugar was still not discovered then, so the drink was said to be an acquired taste.
Sweet-tasting hot chocolate was invented in the 17th century and became a luxury among European nobility as chocolate was so expensive and only grew in South America. The drink was usually infused with various spices, such as jasmine flowers, vanilla, musk, and amber. Milk was later introduced to the drink at the end of late 17th century by Jamaica. By then, due to the aristocratic nature of the drink, chocolate was being referred to as “the drink of the gods.”
