There is something sublime about chocolate. Every culture that encounters it has recognised this. Even the literal-minded Carl Linnæus poetically named the cacao tree ‘Theobroma’ – literally, the food of the gods. Was he aware of the plant’s sacred status within Mesoamerican cultures or had he just tasted a divine cup of cocoa?
The earliest traces of cacao being processed and used as a food, medicine and ritual offering date back 5,500 years to the Mayo-Chinchipe-Marañón people of Ecuador. Not much is known about this ancient culture of farmers and builders but their cocoa recipe seems to have caught on and it passed up the Pacific coast to the more famous Olmec, Aztec and Maya civilisations. Ecuador is still exporting some of the world’s finest chocolate to
