Chocolate is a processed, typically sweetened food produced from the seed of the tropical Theobroma cacao tree.

Cacao has been

cultivated for at least three millennia in Mexico, Central America and Northern South America. Its earliest documented use is around
1100 BC. The majority of the Mesoamerican people made chocolate beverages, including the Aztecs, who made it into a beverage
known as xocoltl [[okola:t

I], a Nahuatl word meaning "bitter water". The seeds of the cacao tree have an intense bitter taste, and
must be fermented to develop the flavor.
After fermentation, the beans are dried, then cleaned, and then roasted, and the shell is removed to produce cacao nibs. The nibs
are then ground to cocoa mass, pure chocolate in rough form. Because this cocoa mass usually is liquefied then molded with or
without other ingredients, it is called chocolate liquor. The liquor also may be processed into two components: cocoa solids and
cocoa. Unsweetened baking chocolate (bitter chocolate) contains primarily cocoa solids and cocoa butter in varying proportions.
Much of the chocolate consumed today is in the form of sweet chocolate, combining cocoa solids, cocoa butter or other fat, and
sugar. Milk chocolate is sweet chocolate that additionally contains milk powder or condensed milk. chocolate contains cocoa butter,
sugar, and milk but no cocoa solids.
Cocoa solids contain alkaloids such as the bromine, phenethylamine and caffeine.
[1]
These have physiological effects on the body
and are linked to serotonin levels in the brain. Some research found that chocolate, eaten in moderation, can lower blood
pressure.
[2]
The presence of the bromine renders chocolate toxic to some animals,
[3]
especially dogs and cats.
Chocolate has become one of the most popular food types and flavors in the world, and a vast number of foodstuffs involving
chocolate have been created. Chocolate chip cookies have become very common, and very popular, in most parts of Europe and
North America. Gifts of chocolate molded into different shapes have become traditional on certain holidays. Chocolate is also used
in cold and hot beverages, to produce chocolate milk and hot chocolate.
Cocoa mass was used originally in Mesoamerica both as a beverage and as an ingredient in foods. Chocolate played a special role
in both Maya and Aztec royal and religious events. Priests presented cacao seeds as offerings to the deities and served chocolate
drinks during sacred ceremonies. All the cacao-bean-growing areas conquered by the Aztecs were ordered to pay the beans as a
tax, or as the Aztecs called it, a "tribute".
[4]

The Europeans sweetened and fattened it by adding refined sugar and milk, two ingredients unknown to the Mexicans. By contrast,
the Europeans never infused it into their general diet, but have compartmentalized its use to sweets and desserts. In the 19th
century, Briton John Cadbury developed an emulsification process to make solid chocolate, creating the modern chocolate bar.
Although cocoa is originally from the Americas, today Western Africa produces almost two-thirds of the world's cocoa, with Cte
d'Ivoire growing almost half of it.