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Chocolate dates back to more than 4000 years to South American and the Mayan days, when the Mayans used cocoa beans as currency and only the very rich could afford to consume it as a drink (with spices and chillies). They also mixed cocoa beans with grain and flavourings to make a healthy meal (some thing that will be considered inedible today!).
| Origin | Amazon or Orinoco basin of South America approximately 4,000 years ago. |
| 600 A.D. | The Maya Indians moved from their home in Guatemala to the Yucatán Peninsula in Mexico. They brought with them cacao from the rain forest. In Guatemala the Maya established large plantations to grow cacao. There is no doubt, however, that the Mayas must have been familiar with cocoa several centuries earlier. |
| 1000 A.D. | The people in Central America began using the cacao beans as money. Drawings have been found showing pictures where 10 beans could buy a rabbit or 100 beans could buy a slave. The beans were also used to make a bitter drink. This drink was used to treat coughs and fever. |
| 1502 | First European contact with cocoa beans (fourth voyage of Christopher Columbus). |
| 1528 | Hernando Cortez returns to Spain with cocoa beans, impressed by the fact that the Aztecs used them as currency. They were hidden in Spanish monasteries. The formula for making the chocolate drink was kept a secret. Only the very rich could afford to buy the drink. Hernando seeded plantations on Trinidad, Haiti, and the West African island of Bioko to grow "money" to trade with Aztecs for gold. Spain then had a virtual monopoly of the cocoa market for almost a century |
| 1615 | Anne of Austria, a Spanish princess, marries Louis XIII of France and takes the Spanish custom of chocolate drinking to France |
| 1657 | The first chocolate house is opened in England by a Frenchman. At this time chocolate cost 6 to 8 shillings per pound. Only the rich could afford to buy chocolate at the chocolate house |
| 1663 | Pralines are created by a cook in Genensburg, Germany |
| Early 1700s | The industrial revolution mechanizes chocolate making and brings the price within the public's reach. Chocolate houses start to spring up in England to compete with coffeehouses. (Chocolate at this point was still consumed as a liquid beverage, not as a confection.) |
| 1765 | The first chocolate factory was established in Massachusetts Bay Colony |
| 1828 | Conrad Van Houten, a Dutch chemist, learns to press cocoa butter out of chocolate liquor. This allows the production of cocoa powder |
| 1848 | Conrad Van Houten adds cocoa butter and sugar to chocolate liquor and "eating chocolate" was created! |
| 1875 | Daniel Peter and Henri Nestle combine chocolate and milk powder and create the first milk chocolate bar |
| 1879 | Rodolphe Lindt produces chocolate that melts on the tongue. He develops the "conching" process that gives chocolate a smoother texture |
| 1900s | Modern day chocolate ‘candies' are created by Hersheys, Cadburys and others |
| 1912 | Jean Neuhaus, Jr. invents the first chocolate covered praline. He fills the empty chocolate shell with pralines invented by his father. |
| 2009 | Leonidas, the Belgium Chocolatier, open its own store in Mumbai, India. |
2011 |
CVADO1502 brings fresh chocolate tasting experience for the first time to India |