CERR
Maxine Scheen
CERR Write Up
Every single aspect of the way we process and manufacture natural chocolate derived from
Theobroma Cacao trees was stolen from the knowledge of the Aztecs, not just the existence of the beans. You can see that in how similar the processes for creating the original chocolate drink
Montezuma gave to Cortes is to the process for creating modern chocolate. To Aztecans, straight up cocoa water was much too bitter for them to drink, even if they did appreciate its properties.
To get over the bitterness they added corn flour to the drink. The same was true when Cortes took cocoa back to Europe. Originally “the Spaniards counteracted the bitterness by adding sugar” (Miller 2) but eventually Conrad van Houten invented dutching which made the cocoa less bitter to the taste by raising the pH of the chocolate. Although this science may seem a far stretch from just adding corn the steps to lessen the bitterness: first adding corn, then sugar, and finally an alkaline solution, were most likely inspired by Montezuma, who taught Europeans that chocolate could be made less bitter, and therefore more delicious. Although it was a French chemist who first studied the reactions caused by roasting the Aztecs knew about it as well, and how it improved the flavors, because it was part of the “three steps that Montezuma used to prepare his drink” (4). The Aztecs taught Cortes the steps to prepare chocolate, so when he took that knowledge back to Europe he took the importance of roasting with him, which wouldn’t have come along until later otherwise as coffee was also a 16th century discovery. This may have been advanced and combined with other methods of processing such as pressing the basic steps to acquiring the chocolatey flavor remain the same, regardless of what is done with the product after the fact. Finally, one of the initial steps after cracking open cocoa beans is to form a large pile of the beans and pulp and then “the
CERR Write Up
Every single aspect of the way we process and manufacture natural chocolate derived from
Theobroma Cacao trees was stolen from the knowledge of the Aztecs, not just the existence of the beans. You can see that in how similar the processes for creating the original chocolate drink
Montezuma gave to Cortes is to the process for creating modern chocolate. To Aztecans, straight up cocoa water was much too bitter for them to drink, even if they did appreciate its properties.
To get over the bitterness they added corn flour to the drink. The same was true when Cortes took cocoa back to Europe. Originally “the Spaniards counteracted the bitterness by adding sugar” (Miller 2) but eventually Conrad van Houten invented dutching which made the cocoa less bitter to the taste by raising the pH of the chocolate. Although this science may seem a far stretch from just adding corn the steps to lessen the bitterness: first adding corn, then sugar, and finally an alkaline solution, were most likely inspired by Montezuma, who taught Europeans that chocolate could be made less bitter, and therefore more delicious. Although it was a French chemist who first studied the reactions caused by roasting the Aztecs knew about it as well, and how it improved the flavors, because it was part of the “three steps that Montezuma used to prepare his drink” (4). The Aztecs taught Cortes the steps to prepare chocolate, so when he took that knowledge back to Europe he took the importance of roasting with him, which wouldn’t have come along until later otherwise as coffee was also a 16th century discovery. This may have been advanced and combined with other methods of processing such as pressing the basic steps to acquiring the chocolatey flavor remain the same, regardless of what is done with the product after the fact. Finally, one of the initial steps after cracking open cocoa beans is to form a large pile of the beans and pulp and then “the