But where did that chocolate come from? And how did it find its way to your granola bar?

Chocolate, which was once called 'the food of the gods,' has a long and complicated history. Over the last 500 years, many countries have gotten involved in trading chocolate. Even the Boomerang Box has gotten involved, because the Boomerang Box is carrying a load of cocoa from the Netherlands to the United States.

So let's find out what we can about chocolate.

Chocolate is made from the fruit seeds of the cacao tree. These seeds are also known as cocoa beans. Cacao trees grow near the equator in South and Central America, Africa, the Caribbean, Southeast Asia, and even in Hawaii.

When cocoa beans are harvested, they are dried in the sun, cleaned, and then roasted to bring out their chocolate flavor. After they are roasted, the beans are shelled and ground and turned into cocoa powder, cocoa butter, and cocoa liquor. These three substances are used in different combinations to make chocolate for candy bars, to make hot chocolate mix, and to make all the other different chocolate-flavored treats we love.

Chocolate has been popular around the world for thousands of years. The Mayan peoples of Central America were the first to use the cocoa bean. More than 2,400 years ago, they were making a chocolate drink called xocoatl from the cocoa bean.

Spanish traders got their first taste of this drink in the 1500s when they sailed to Central America. They took cocoa home with them and added sugar to make hot chocolate a very popular drink in Europe.

Over the next few centuries, cocoa and chocolate became more and more popular in Europe. Traders from different European countries even started cocoa plantations to keep up with the demand. They planted cacao trees in Central and South America and even in Africa.

During this time, the Netherlands became a cocoa powerhouse. Dutch traders, through their West India Company, controlled all trade with Venezuela in South America. Venezuela didn't have gold or silver… but it did have a lot of cacao trees. The Dutch traders brought cocoa beans from Venezuela to Europe to trade for other goods. At first, most of these cocoa beans went to Spain to be roasted and processed. But by the 1700s, people in the Netherlands began to open their own cocoa processing factories. The Netherlands quickly became a top cocoa processor.

These trading patterns still hold true today. And that is why a load of cocoa has just left Rotterdam in the Netherlands to travel to the United States. This cocoa came from beans grown in South America or Africa. The beans were processed in the Netherlands. Now, the cocoa from the beans will be sent to the United States to be turned into candy, hot chocolate, or other chocolate treats.

Study Questions:

Here are the names of some of the countries where cacao trees grow. See if you can identify them on a map: Venezuela, Ghana, Côte d'Ivoire, Nigeria, Cameroon, Brazil, Ecuador, Colombia, Mexico, Guatemala, Sri Lanka, Fiji, Samoa, Tanzania, and Madagascar.

Go to the local grocery store with a parent or other responsible adult. Try to identify at least ten products made from cocoa. Make a list with the products' names and the way the ingredients are described. Do they include cocoa powder or cocoa butter? What else is needed?

Check out past Trade Topics entries!