On this Wikipedia the language links are at the top of the page across from the article title. Chocolate is a food made from roasted and ground cacao seed kernels that is available as a liquid, chocolate cannoli, or paste, either on its own or as a flavoring agent in other foods. The seeds of the cacao tree have an intense bitter taste and must be fermented to develop the flavor.

After fermentation, the seeds are dried, cleaned, and roasted. With some two million children involved in the farming of cocoa in West Africa, child slavery and trafficking associated with the cocoa trade remain major concerns. Chocolate has been prepared as a drink for nearly all of its history. For example, one vessel found at an Olmec archaeological site on the Gulf Coast of Veracruz, Mexico, dates chocolate’s preparation by pre-Olmec peoples as early as 1750 BC. Volcanic stone, traces of red pigment. Maya tomb from the site in Rio Azul had vessels with the Maya glyph for cocoa on them with residue of a chocolate drink, suggests the Maya were drinking chocolate around 400 AD.

By the 15th century, the Aztecs had gained control of a large part of Mesoamerica and had adopted cocoa into their culture. The Aztecs were unable to grow cocoa themselves, as their home in the Mexican highlands was unsuitable for it, so chocolate was a luxury imported into the empire. Those who lived in areas ruled by the Aztecs were required to offer cocoa seeds in payment of the tax they deemed “tribute”. The Maya and Aztecs associated cocoa with human sacrifice, and chocolate drinks specifically with sacrificial human blood. Chocolate soon became a fashionable drink of the European nobility after the discovery of the Americas. Until the 16th century, no European had ever heard of the popular drink from the Central American peoples.

Although bananas are more profitable, cocoa is more highly esteemed in Mexico Cocoa is a smaller fruit than almonds and thicker, which toasted do not taste bad. While Columbus had taken cocoa beans with him back to Spain, chocolate made no impact until Spanish friars introduced it to the Spanish court. After the Spanish conquest of the Aztecs, chocolate was imported to Europe. There, it quickly became a court favorite.

Dutch chemist Coenraad Johannes van Houten invented “Dutch cocoa” by treating cocoa mass with alkaline salts to reduce the natural bitterness without adding sugar or milk to get usable cocoa powder. The new craze for chocolate brought with it a thriving slave market, as between the early 1600s and late 1800s, the laborious and slow processing of the cocoa bean was manual. Cocoa plantations spread, as the English, Dutch, and French colonized and planted. With the depletion of Mesoamerican workers, largely to disease, cocoa production was often the work of poor wage laborers and African slaves. New processes that sped the production of chocolate emerged early in the Industrial Revolution. In 1815, Dutch chemist Coenraad van Houten introduced alkaline salts to chocolate, which reduced its bitterness. Fry’s produced the first chocolate in solid state in 1847, which was then mass-produced as Fry’s Chocolate Cream in 1866.