An Aphrodisiac Bean: Cocoa

How can we not love cocoa if it’s not only delicious but its history is fascinating.

It can grow up to 25 meters and it has a productive life of 30 years.

When we think of the origins of cocoa, we must start 2000 years before Christ in the popular area known as Mesoamerica, between Mexico, Guatemala, and Honduras. But producing cocoa is not that easy; it requires a lot of effort and manual labor. To produce 453 grs of cocoa, 400 beans are needed. Regardless of the use of the bean, with the waste, indigenous people produced ceramic containers. So it was a win-win.

The Yumbos in the Pichincha Province of Ecuador also produced cacao and used it to barter for other products to fulfill their needs. However, cacao was not only used for exchange, it was used as a currency by the time Christopher Columbus arrived in America.

The Golden Beans era (cocoa drove the economy) lasted until the outbreak of the First War World. Today, Ecuador is the first fine cacao aroma exporter among other countries like Ghana and Ivory Coast.

A fun fact is that the Spanish Crown kept the cacao secret until 1615. By then, Princess Ana of Austria married Philip the III and they took the chocolate recipe as their dowry.

They did not want to share the recipe, because It was a drink for the royalty to conceive children. It was used as an aphrodisiac because it has caffeine, theobromine, serotonine, and phenethylamine.

Today cacao is consumed throughout the world as a drink that unites people in the same table.

Here is the authentic

Spanish Chocolate recipe:

700 grams of powdered cacao

56 grams cinnamon

15 clove

Anise

Musk, amber and blossom

Sweet and Dark Saturday from Quito, Ecuador!

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