The xocolatl was said to be an acquired taste. Jose de Acosta, a Spanish Jesuit missionary who lived in Peru and then Mexico in the later 16th century, wrote of it: "Loathsome to such as are not acquainted with it, having a scum or froth that is very unpleasant to taste. Yet it is a drink very much esteemed among the Indians, where with they feast noble men who pass through their country. The Spaniards, both men and women, that are accustomed to the country, are very greedy of this Chocolaté. They say they make diverse sorts of it, some hot, some cold, and some temperate, and put therein much of that "chili"; yea, they make paste thereof, the which they say is good for the stomach and against the catarrh."
Christopher Columbus brought some cocoa beans to show Ferdinand and Isabella of Spain, but it was Hernando Cortes who introduced it to Europe more broadly.
The first recorded shipment of chocolate to the Old World for commercial purposes was in a shipment from Veracruz to Seville in 1585. It was still served as a beverage, but the Europeans added sugar and milk to counteract the natural bitterness and removed the chilli pepper, replacing it with another Mexican indigenous spice, vanilla. Improvements to the taste meant that by the 17th century it was a luxury item among the European nobility.
At the end of the 18th century, the first form of solid chocolate was invented in Turin by Doret. This chocolate was sold in large quantities from 1826 by Pierre Paul Caffarel. In 1819, F. L. Cailler opened the first Swiss chocolate factory. In 1828, Dutchman Conrad J. van Houten patented a method for extracting the fat from cocoa beans and making powdered cocoa and cocoa butter. Van Houten also developed the so-called Dutch process of treating chocolate with alkali to remove the bitter taste. This made it possible to form the modern chocolate bar. It is believed that the Englishman Joseph Fry made the first chocolate for eating in 1847, followed in 1849 by the Cadbury brothers.
Daniel Peter, a Swiss candle maker, joined his father-in-law's chocolate business. In 1867, he began experimenting with milk as an ingredient. He brought his new product, milk chocolate, to market in 1875. He was assisted in removing the water content from the milk to prevent mildewing by a neighbour, a baby food manufacturer named Henri Nestlé. Rodolphe Lindt invented the process called conching, which involves heating and grinding the chocolate solids very finely to ensure that the liquid is evenly blended.
Chocolate liquor is blended with the butter in varying quantities to make different types of chocolate or couverture. The basic blends of ingredients, in order of highest quantity of cocoa liquor first, are as follows.
1. Plain dark chocolate: sugar, cocoa butter, cocoa liquor, and (sometimes) vanilla
2. Milk chocolate: sugar, cocoa butter, cocoa liquor, milk or milk powder, and vanilla
3. White chocolate: sugar, cocoa butter, milk or milk powder, and vanilla
The texture is heavy influenced by processing, specifically conching. The more expensive chocolates tend to be processed longer and thus have a smoother texture and "feel" on the tongue, regardless of whether emulsifying agents are added.
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Cacao 
Cacao is a small (4–8 m tall) evergreen tree in the family Sterculiaceae (alternatively Malvaceae), native to tropical South America, but now cultivated throughout the tropics. Its seeds are used to make cocoa and chocolate.
The tree grows naturally in the low foothills of the Andes at elevations of around 200–400 m in the Amazon and Orinoco river basins; it is believed to have been introduced to Central America by trade and domestication from its origins in the Amazon Basin. It requires a humid climate with regular rainfall and good soil. It is an understory tree, growing best with some overhead shade. The leaves are alternate, entire, unlobed, 10–40 cm long and 5–20 cm broad.
The flowers are produced in clusters directly on the trunk and older branches; they are small, 1–2 cm diameter, with pink calyx. The fruit, called a cacao pod, is ovoid, 15–30 cm long and 8–10 cm wide, ripening yellow to orange, and weighs about 500 g when ripe. The pod contains 20 to 60 seeds, usually called "beans", embedded in a white pulp. Each seed contains a significant amount of fat (40–50% as cocoa butter). Their most important active constituent is Theobromine, a compound somewhat similar to Caffeine.
The scientific name Theobroma means "food of the gods", while cacao probably comes from the Mixe-Zoquean languages family used by the Olmecs (Kakawa), and is believed to have been in use as early as 1000 BC.
A tree begins to bear when 4 or 5 years old. In one year, when mature, it may have 6,000 flowers, but only about 20 pods. About 300-600 seeds (10 pods) are required to produce around 1 kg of cocoa paste.
There are three main cultivar groups of cacao beans used to make cocoa and chocolate. The most prized, rare, and expensive is the Criollo Group, the cocoa bean used by the Maya. Only 10% of chocolate is made from Criollo, which is less bitter and more aromatic than any other bean. The cacao bean in 80% of chocolate is made using beans of the Forastero Group. Forastero trees are significantly hardier than Criollo trees, resulting in cheaper cacao beans. Trinitario, a hybrid of Criollo and Forastero, is used in about 10% of chocolate. For details of processing, see cocoa.
Cacao beans were commonly used as currency in Pre-Columbian Mesoamerica. In some areas, such as Yucatán, they were still used in place of small coins as late as the 1840s.
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