Chocolate Was Money Before It Was Candy

Four hundred years ago, a handful of chocolate wouldn't have bought you a treat — it would have paid your wages. For most of its history chocolate wasn't a sweet at all: it was a bitter, spiced drink, and its beans were literally money. This is the strange 4,000-year story of how cacao went from Aztec currency to the smooth sweet bar in your hand. From the rainforests of Mesoamerica and the storehouses of Montezuma, to Columbus overlooking it, the Spanish sweetening it, and the industrial inventors who turned a drink into a bar — here's how one of the world's most beloved foods really came to be. And the bitter price it still carries today. Chapters: 0:00 Chocolate was money 1:08 A drink for gods and kings 1:38 Cacao as Aztec currency 2:35 Montezuma, the chocolate king 3:10 Columbus misses it 3:39 The Spanish sweeten it 4:41 The industrial revolution 5:39 The first chocolate bar 6:27 The Swiss: milk and smoothness 7:35 Chocolate goes global 8:09 The bitter price 8:50 Every food has an origin story New origin stories every week. Subscribe — this is Foodling. #chocolate #foodhistory #history #mythology #cacao