Chocolate is a sweet treat that has found its way to supermarket shelves in nearly every single country around the world. It can be enjoyed in a variety of forms, from the simple chocolate bar to hot drinks, or if you’re feeling particularly extravagant, a chocolate fondue. Cocoa beans were being consumed as far back as 3000 BC; in Ecuador, archaeologist Michael Blake excavated the ceramic pots used by the Mayo-Chinchipe culture and discovered traces of theobromine (an alkaline present in cacao beans) and starch grains unique to the cacao tree. In its earliest origins, chocolate was consumed as a hot drink for ritualistic purposes, and later medicinal purposes. The chocolate bar we are familiar with today wasn’t produced until the 19thcentury, by the British chocolate company J. S. Fry & Sons in 1847.

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