Hot Chocolate: A Journey Through Time

In 1528, cocoa beans made their debut in Europe, courtesy of Spanish explorers who encountered the Aztec Indians in Mexico. Witnessing the Aztecs' cocoa bean grinding rituals, the Spaniards brought this exotic treasure back home. Initially, the concoction was a peculiar mix of ground cocoa, water, wine, and spices like peppers.

However, the Spaniards quickly adapted the recipe to suit European tastes, adding sugar and heating the beverage, thus birthing the first iteration of hot cocoa. This delightful drink gained popularity and soon found its way to England, where the addition of milk elevated it to a luxurious after-dinner indulgence.

The evolution of hot chocolate took a significant leap forward in 1828 with the invention of the cocoa powder producing machine. This innovation marked the dawn of processed cocoa, boasting a milder flavor profile and easier blending properties with warm milk or water. This milestone democratized hot chocolate, making it accessible to a wider audience and solidifying its place as a beloved beverage across the globe.
Hot Chocolate: A Journey Through Time

Hot chocolate and its health benefits

Chocolate has been drunk for thousands of years, most archeologists agree, but it was the Mayans who relay got the ball rolling by developing savory chocolate drinks.

Scientists are now discovering health benefits and offering some justification for including chocolate in a health diet.

*Harvard Medical School research indicates that drinking 2 cups of hot chocolate per day helps preserve brain health and preserve brain decline in older people. Study conducted at Cornell University shows that the antioxidant concentration in hot cocoa is almost twice as strong as red wine. Cocoa's concentration was two to three times stronger than that of green tea and four to five times stronger than that of black tea.

*Researchers from Cornell University also recommends that ‘hot’ in ‘hot chocolate’ is important as more antioxidant are released when it;s heated up.

*Research indicates that flavanols, the compounds found in coca, have antioxidant properties that help mop up the damage done by free radicals. These same compounds also relax artery walls and keep blood platelets from sticking the arteries thus reducing the chances of heart disease.

*Polyphenol catechin can help boost the immune system from colds to cancer.

*Medical researchers discover that hot chocolate boasts health benefits that may boost longevity, due to the disease-fighting antioxidants in the cocoa.
Hot chocolate and its health benefits 

Chocolate Beverage

Hot chocolate is a delicious drink that is a cocktail of cocoa powder or chocolate, sugar and milk.

It was the first known chocolate beverage to become popular, but it wasn’t the first one to be made with cocoa. The earliest chocolate drink was an unappealing bitter brew of cocoa and chilies consumed by the Aztec and Maya more than three thousand years ago.

Until the sixteenth century, ground chocolate was mixed with water and spices, including chili peppers, to make a bitter frothy beverage.

It wasn’t until the European added sugar, vanilla and a little heat in the sixteen century than Hot Chocolate become the royal beverage of choice.

During the 1600s and 1700s, fancy chocolate pots made of silver, gold and porcelain were used to serve hot chocolate drinks.

Of course, like every great recipe, this timeless classic has become the inspiration for an endless number of other chocolate beverages.

Formulations are becoming increasingly sophisticated with a wide variety of products on the market. These include products and chocolate drinks flavored with for instance orange, mint or toffee.
Chocolate Beverage

Hot Chocolate

Chocolate has been drunks for thousands of years. Mayan developing savory chocolate drinks. Residue taken from broad range of ancient Maya vessels reveal that all Maya regularly drank a spicy, foamy, chocolatyl brew perhaps as far back as 2600 years ago.

In the 1500s the Aztecs introduced a little sweetness of the mixture in the form of honey.

The chocolate drink famous today became a fashionable drink in Europe in the seventeenth century.

In 1657, the first chocolate shop opened in London, England. Chocolate houses, where wealthy men paid an entrance fee to drink hot chocolate, gamble, play cards, eat and socialize.

There is a new reason to enjoy hot cocoa on a cold winter's night in front of a cozy fire. Consider it a health drink.

Beyond the froth, cocoa teems with antioxidants that prevent cancer, food scientists say.

Today in Europe, hot chocolate is a favorite breakfast drink and is considered healthy for children.

Especially for Spanish, they drink hot chocolate for breakfast instead of coffee.

There are many ways of preparing hot chocolate. The only common denominator is that it should be thick and foamy.
Hot Chocolate

Health Benefits of Chocolate Drinks

There is a new reason to enjoy hot cocoa on a cold winter's night in front of a cozy fire. Consider it a health drink. Despite its relatively high sugar and saturated fat content chocolate is a rich source of antioxidants.

Other than reduce oxidization of LDL they also prevent cancer, food scientists say.

The reason that cocoa leads the other drinks is its high content of compounds called phenolic phytochemicals, or flavonoids, indicating the presence of known antioxidants that can stave off cancer, cardiovascular disease and other ailments.

Cocoa contains the flavonoids epicatechin and catechins as well as the larger oligomeric flavanols procyanadins.

Apart from cocoa and chocolate, flavanols are also found in a number of other foods and drinks such as apricots, apples, tea and red wines.

Comparing the chemical anti-cancer activity in beverages known to contain antioxidants, they have found that cocoa has nearly twice the antioxidants of red wine and up to three times those found in green tea.

The scientists discovered 611 milligrams of the phenolic compound gallic acid equivalents (GAE) and 564 milligrams of the flavonoid epicatechin equivalents (ECE) in a single serving of cocoa. Examining a glass of red wine, the researchers found 340 milligrams of GAE and 163 milligrams of ECE.

In a cup of green tea, they found 165 milligrams of GAE and 47 milligrams of ECE. When the scientist compared one serving of each beverage, the cocoa turned out to be the highest in antioxidant activity.

Phenols in milk chocolate are also higher than that in black and green tea.

A cup of hot chocolate can contain approximately 150 mg of phenolic compounds. And a piece of milk chocolate bar provides almost 200 mg.

Phenolic compounds protect plants against insects and pathogens, and they remain active even after food processing.

Some other nutrients in chocolate include magnesium, phosphorus, potassium, calcium, iron, zinc, copper and manganese.

The Aztec and Mayans believed that their cocoa drink had a positive health benefit and there have been many documented uses of cocoa as a medicine over the centuries.

Chocolate was a popular as a drink before it was eaten as candy. In the mid 1600s - chocolate was a fashionable English beverage. Drinking chocolate was touted as being wholesome for body and mind, and it was often consumed for medicinal purposes.
Health Benefits of Chocolate Drinks

Hot Chocolate

Hot Chocolate
Cacao became the jewel of European commerce, while chocolate beverages became fashionable among lords and ladies, poets and prelates. The upper class sipped their steaming hot chocolate heavily sweetened and served in deep, straight-sided cups, while royalty flaunted their wealth by drinking from golden chalices. By the time the beverage made its way to the British Isles, milk has been added to the mixture, and although chocolate houses flourished in major cities, the prices of drinking chocolate was out reach for the bourgeoisie.

In 1828, everything changed when a Dutch chemist developed a new way of pressing the fat from cacao beans. His method for creating cocoa powder made the drink more affordable and available to the masses, although the new drink pale in comparison to the original.

While most countries in Europe remained faithful to the more luxurious recipe, convenient cocoa powder prevailed in Britain and elsewhere. As those in the United States adopted the British fondness for cocoa, they drink seemed to lose its appeal among adults.

Cocoa was relegated to adolescence and derided in literature as bedtime nourishment for schoolgirls. To make matter worse, Americans began using the terms “hot chocolate” and “hot cocoa” interchangeably, obscuring the considerable difference between the two.

True hot chocolate has maintained its exotic, romantic image in much of Europe, yet it has never been widely embraced in this side of the Atlantic. And while it’s obvious that American temperaments are suited to the stimulation of coffee, a growing number of us long for a time when life was simpler and food was slower.
Hot Chocolate