Did you know that cacao is originally from the Americas? It’s true! The trees that grow the cacao bean – the key ingredient of chocolate – hail from the tropic regions of the Americas. Christopher Columbus first brought chocolate to Europe when he returned to Spain from his trip to the “New World.”

But chocolate’s rich history doesn’t begin with the American colonies. Hundreds of years earlier, the Maya and Aztec people were known to make a coveted drink out of ground cacao seeds and other seasonings. In fact, cacao seeds were so prized that they were also used in religious ceremonies and as currency.

The history of chocolate in America:

• Chocolate was a military ration during the American Revolutionary War.
• George and Martha Washington, Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin all drank chocolate.
• Chocolate was drunk as a medicine during the Lewis and Clark Expedition and on the Overland Trails by California Gold Rush miners.
• Amelia Earhart had a cup of chocolate during her record-setting flight over the Pacific from Hawaii to the U.S. mainland on January 11, 1935.