The Story Behind Hot Chocolate

©2010 begin with a Sunny Outlook

Hot chocolate wasn’t always hot, and it wasn’t always served American style topped with marshmallows or whipped cream drizzled with chocolate. It took a long time for our familiar concoction to arrive on the scene.

IT’S WINTER AND FOR THOSE IN the colder climates, you are probably thinking ‘brrrrrrr’. We thought we’d share the story of how ‘hot chocolate’ came to be in hopes to warm your spirit.

It is probably one of America’s, and the world’s, favorite cold weather drinks. So much so that even our trendy, well-known coffee establishments offer hot chocolate along with their many coffee drinks, which is actually reminiscent of it’s earlier rise to popularity in Europe in trendy chocolate houses around 1657.

Enjoying hot chocolate, American style, by a cozy fire

Whether we drink it with marshmallows or topped with whipped cream, drizzled with chocolate syrup or sprinkled with cinnamon, it always seems to hit the spot. Football games, family movie night, warming up after skiing or an old fashion snowball fight, it just wouldn’t be the same without it. Who do we thank for this yummy elixir? Where did it come from?

The way in which the world has come to know hot chocolate is actually an adaptation of a very different type of drink, from Central America about 2000 years ago, that was bitter, spicy, watery, and served cold.

Many, many centuries later, a Spanish conquistador whose name was Hernan Cortes, was in Central America and was introduced to the cocoa bean plantations and to the chocolate drink while he was there. When he returned to Spain around 1528, he presented this drink to the Spanish people. They adapted it to their liking by eliminating the spices and adding sugar (now it was no longer bitter) and flavored it with vanilla and cinnamon, which is the taste of hot chocolate that we know today. Since the cocoa beans had to be imported, it was, at first, a drink for nobility and the upper class. And it so appears that the Spanish were great at keeping a secret because they kept it a secret from the rest of Europe for 100 years.

It is not documented when the hot chocolate drink began to be warmed to establish it as ‘hot’ chocolate, but by 1657, at the first chocolate house in Paris, they were serving ‘hot chocolate.’ Milk was not added to the mix until the early 1700’s in England.

In North America, hot chocolate is a thinner drink usually with the aforementioned ‘toppings.’ In England, it is usually thinner, also. In Italy, it is a thick drink known as cioccolata densa. Germany also has a thicker recipe, and Spain’s is so thick it is like a warm pudding. While many countries have their own name for hot chocolate, we will end with the Netherlands, where it is known as warme chocolademelk.

Stay warm, spring is just around the corner!