Cocoa and Maya Civilisation
It was the Maya Indians, an ancient people whose descendants still live in Central America, who first discovered the delights of cocoa as long ago as 600 AD.
The Maya lived in the Yucatan Peninsula; a tropical area in what is now Southern Mexico, where cocoa trees grew wild. They harvested cocoa beans from the trees in the rain forest, then cleared areas of lowland forest to grow their own cocoa trees, in the first known cocoa plantations.
Chocolate was made from roasted cocoa beans, water and a little spice: and it was the most important use of cocoa beans, although they were also valued as a currency. An early explorer visiting Central America found that:
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4 cocoa beans could buy a pumpkin
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10 could buy a rabbit, 100 a slave.
 Because cocoa beans were valuable, they were given as gifts on occasions such as a child's coming of age and at religious ceremonies. The Maya had complicated religious beliefs, with many gods. Ek Chuah, the merchant god, was closely linked with cocoa and cocoa fruits were used at festivals in his honour. Merchants often traded cocoa beans for other commodities, and for cloth, jade and ceremonial feathers.
Maya farmers transported their cocoa beans to market by canoe or in large baskets strapped to their backs. Wealthy merchants travelled further, employing porters, as there were no horses, pack animals or wheeled carts in Central America at that time. Some ventured as far as Mexico, the land of the Aztecs, introducing them to the much-prized cocoa beans.
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