Before the sweet candy chocolate that we know nowadays, chocolate was a spicy drink.

Some of the earliest known chocolate drinkers were the ancient Maya and Aztecs of Mesoamerica from the Classic Period. Many anthropologists consider the ancient Maya were the first to have made chocolate. They grounded cacao seeds into a paste that, when mixed with water, made a frothy, rather bitter beverage.

Archaeologists aren’t sure exactly how the Maya first learned the tasty secret of the “cacao” tree that grew in the tropical rainforests of their homeland but it is very well known that chocolate was a treasured Maya treat.

The first evidence of chocolate comes from the height of Mayan civilization, the Classic Period (250-900 C.E. [A.D.]).
In fact, the paintings found on vessels tell us much about chocolate importance for Mayas. Many Maya artifacts are painted with scenes of people pouring and enjoying chocolate. Some show images of kings, or even gods and animals, drinking chocolate.

Everyone could occasionally enjoy a chocolate drink, no matter their status but it was a particular favorite of Maya kings and priests who drank their chocolate from elaborate vessels decorated by specially trained artists.

Chocolate played an important role in royal religious events; actually, Maya couples drank chocolate as part of their ceremony.

By the 1400s, the Aztecs were gradually gaining control over a huge expanse of Mesoamerica. Their territory ranged all the way from northern Mexico to the Maya lands in Honduras.

Cacao quickly became a key to the Aztec’s vast trade empire—not only as a luxury drink, but also monetary, offerings to the gods, and payment to rulers. All of the areas that were conquered by the Aztecs that grew cacao beans were ordered to pay them as a tax or as the Aztecs called it, a “tribute”.

Trade was crucial to maintain the economy among the cities and it was mostly based on food like squash, potatoes, corn, beans and of course chocolate .

It was in 1500s, that a Spanish missionary Jesuit who lived in Peru and Mexico wrote of about the chocolate, in the later 16th century, when no one Spanish had known it before.
Then, Christopher Columbus brought some cocoa beans to show Ferdinand and Isabella of Spain, but it was Spanish friars who introduced it to Europe more broadly.