On Tuesday, September 9, 1645, at 12 noon, the cocoa trader Antonio Méndez Chillón was arrested at his home in Veracruz (New Spain) by the Inquisition commissioner and charged with Jewish heresy. This episode, which was far from being isolated, helps shed…
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As an architect, I’ve been fascinated by museums and how the design of spaces can influence the experience of the visitor and the meaning of the objects within. Museums are not only repositories of valuable pieces preserved for posterity, but cultural elements…
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I’ve worked with chocolate for the last four years, but ironically, I only started drinking hot chocolate for breakfast a couple of weeks ago. My morning chocolate comes from our family plantation in the region of Quindío, Colombia, the country where I was born…
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What Champagne is to sparkling wine or Ethiopia to coffee, Mexico is to chocolate—a food-beverage product branded for its uniqueness, origin and quality, resulting in voluminous sales at premium prices to a dedicated consumer base…
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In the southern regions of Mesoamerica in what is today Mexico and Guatemala, the historical Lacandon and Manche Maya developed complex methods that produced what we now call “the chocolate triad,” referring to the associated planting of cacao…
Approaching Guayaquil in 1879 to assume his duties as French vice consul, Charles Wiener assessed the port city and nearby farms. “A tropical Holland,” he later declared. Guayaquileños have always taken Wiener’s remark as a well-deserved compliment, even if it might…
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Legend has it that the god Quetzalcóatl gave the Aztecs the cacao tree. Ambrosia or nourishment of the gods as its scientific name Theobroma Cacao indicates. Furthermore, cacao is where chocolate comes from. Both words, chocolate and cacao, come…
