Did you know that chocolate means bitter drink in Nahualt? Who needs a hot body when you can have hot chocolate? This smiling Guatemalan woman asks on her t-shirt. I don’t know for sure, but one thing I know, chocolate makes everyone happy, don’t you agree?
She works at Choco Museo, the chocolate museum, and every single time I have seen her, she’s got a big smile. Do you need any more proof that chocolate makes people happy?
Here is your Spanish word of the day: Chocolatería for chocolate shop or factory. Slowly but surely La Antigua Guatemala has become the premier chocolate destination in Central America. There are so many chocolaterías in La Antigua Guatemala where you can buy 100% dark chocolate, 70% chocolate, milk chocolate, white chocolate, premium chocolates, etc. If … Read more
Here’s your illustrated Spanish word of the day: Molcajete or mortar and pestle. So how did the Maya and Mexica grounded their cacao beans, maize, etc.? Well, simple, by hand, using a humble molcajete, mortar, and tejolote, pestle, as shown above. The molcajete was used by pre-Hispanic Mesoamerican cultures, including the Aztec and Maya, stretching … Read more
The birthplace for chocolate is Guatemala, which is the heartland of the Mayan world. Chocolate means bitter drink in Nahualt, that’s the language of the Mexicas better known as Aztecs. The Maya paid the Mexicans with kawkaw [cacao] for goods and services. It was the Spanish who added sugar to it, I guess after 800 … Read more
Chocolate is created from the cocoa bean that come from cacao pods as seen here. Chocolate is quite possibly the most popular flavour in the world. The origins of chocolate, however, can be very controversial. It is been claimed that the Olmecs were the first people of Mesoamerica to drink chocolate, or sometime around 1750 … Read more
First of all, bitter chocolate is an oxymoron because chocolate means bitter drink. That’s right, we can say chocolate was the bitter drink of Meso America just as coffee was the bitter drink of Africa and Europe or tea in Asia. “Chocolate is coming back home to Central America, good chocolate at last. The cacao … Read more
Did you know that Guatemala is the birthplace for chocolate? If not, read on. Cocoa bean (also cacao bean,[1] often simply cocoa and cacao; Mayan: kakaw; Nahuatl: cacaua) is the dried and fully fermented fatty seed of Theobroma cacao, from which cocoa solids and cocoa butter are extracted. They are the basis of chocolate, as … Read more