50 shades of Chocolate

From the discovery of America onwards, the use of the cacao tree has never stopped evolving across time and space. The Mayas and Aztecs used its beans as a currency, and its juice was sacred. In Europe, cacao was firstly seen as a medicinal plant or an aphrodisiac, before becoming an edible ingredient or food on its own. But how and when did chocolate become a much beloved mass consumer product? Get ready to discover how the history of chocolate is tightly intertwined with the Enlightenment, the Industrial Revolution, as well as the history of slavery, colonisation, and the two World Wars…