This Chocolate Blog has begun…

It’s everywhere – all around us is chocolate.  Chocolate is in bars in shops, we have chocolate truffles with our coffee, we even have cocoa butter in cosmetics.  We cannot escape chocolate and who would want to?  Hot chocolate in the winder, chocolate ice cream in the summer and a lovely bar of chocolate any time we want one, chocolate is a part of our lives.  Just as blogs seem to have become an essential part of modern living, combining the ubiquity of chocolate with the pervasiveness of blogs seemed like a natural thing and so this chocolate blog was born.

Chocolate has been a passion of mine for a number of years now and as an old fashioned person who even still has a live journal account, I thought it would be fun to blog about chocolate.  This blog is purely about my passion.  It isn’t here to sell anything, I don’t have a chocolate business and there are no paid ads here.  I’m just expressing myself and my passion.

I do work outside chocolate blogging and sometimes you’ll see me review wine, macarons, tea, coffee, or even a restaurant.  Mainly this is a blog about chocolate and my love of the stuff.  Chocolate is my consuming passion and I have spent the last few years discovering the best chocolate around the globe and experiencing it as well as learning how to taste it properly.

Chocolate has grown wild in tropical Central America since prehistoric times. I have yet to see fossilised chocolate but I suppose much as any fruit has no fossilised remains, so too for chocolate.  Nobody knows when humans joined the gods and started to consume chocolate, but archeologists believe that the Olmecs were the first one to pick and use the cocoa beans.  The Mayans wrote about cacao on their pottery around 500 A.D. giving us an indication of how pervasive the use of chocolate as a food was.

Motecuhzoma the king of the Aztecs was drinking 50 flagons of chocolate every day.  This specific version of the popular modern beverage was sometimes made with wine or water.  Imagine today making hot chocolate with wine!  I’ll stick with Tia Maria of Baileys 🙂  This ancient version of hot chocolate was seasoned with chilli pepper, vanilla, or even pimiento.  Who knew it was for more than just stuffing in the middle of olives?  “Cacao”, it’s Mayan name, was known to the Mayans as a cure for diarrhoea and dysentery.  It also was believed to be an aphrodisiac making it the ultimate Valentines gift.  Cortez is known to have tried the beverage, but he found it too bitter (probably forgot to add the honey!)  However he did write to King Carlos the first of Spain, calling “xocoatl” a “beverage that builds up resistance and fights fatigue.”

These days, we see a lot of different chocolate but the actual origin of this chocolate is actually quite limited.  Most commercially produced chocolates are made from a liquor or chocolate made and conched by a single manufacturer and they then take that chocolate and do different things with it.  This chocolate may have passed through a number of hands before it reaches your hands including several brokers.  To buy ethically and responsibly, check your chocolate and read this blog to find chocolate ethically sourced and created.

Chocolate is a precious resource of this planet.  When you choose to eat chocolate, please choose responsibly.  Thank you.

Love Judith Lewis, chief and only chocolate blogger