Cocoa Latin name : THEOBROMA (food of the Gods) The fruit of the cocoa tree was used by the Olmec Indians in South and Central America long before it was introduced to Europe and the rest of the world. It was the Olmec Indians who invented the word for cacao. The Mayan Indians further domesticated cacao and developed the first cacao beverage. The Aztecs credit their god, Quetzlcoatl, for introducing the cocoa bean to humankind they reserved cocoa consumption for nobility and warriors. It was not only used for nutrition, but also used as a form of currency. Chocolate was first consumed as a spicy, bitter drink. The ancient Aztecs roasted and ground cocoa beans into a paste, mixed it with water and maize, flavored the drink with chilies and beat it to a froth. It was called "xocolatl" (pronounced "shoco-latle"). The great Aztec ruler Montezuma and his court consumed up to 50 pitchers of the xocolatl drink per day. The precious elixir was served in goblets of solid gold, which were used just once, and then thrown into a lake. In 1519 AD the Spanish explorer Hernan Cortes was introduced to chocolate by Montezuma. Columbus was the first European to find cocoabeans when he intercepted an Indian canoe off the Yucatan coast of Mexico in 1502. He presented them to King Ferdinand of Spain as an example of the "coins" being used in the New World. In 1544 chocolate made its first appearance in the European country Spain. It was the Spanish explorer Hernan Cortes who discovered how the Aztecs made the chocolate beverage in 1519. Montezuma, convinced that Cortes represented the prophesied appearance of a "white god," presented the explorer with a royal plantation of cocoa trees. For nearly a century, chocolate remained the secret indulgence of Spain. Then, in 1606, explorers reached the West Indies and returned with the news of this splendid potion. Linnaeus, a Swedish scientist named cocoa Theobroma cacao, "the food of the Gods". In Holland, in 1828, Coenraad Van Houten invented a screw press that extracted the cocoa butter from the beans. Van Houten's alkalizing process, which came to be known as "dutching," removed acidity and bitterness, resulting in a smoother, sweeter chocolate drink. Today, alkali-processed cocoa is still called Dutch chocolate.