Subject: The Aztecs and Chocolate

The Aztecs had a great love of chocolate and it was one of their favorite drinks. One of the reasons was the native drink of the Aztecs, known as octli, was alcoholic and being drunk was frowned on by the Aztec society.

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Made from the century plant, octli was a juice that came from cutting the stalk of the flower from the century plant that had matured. The stalk was undercut and removed leaving a basin that the juices collected in, this juice was collected for a period of several months and allowed to ferment, turning it into octli.

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Chocolate to the Aztecs was a much more acceptable drink, the warriors and nobility especially desired it. Octli was not prohibited, the elderly were permitted to drink it, and actually they were identified as people who had children and grandchildren, not necessarily old. They were allowed to have up to four cups each night, at some feasts every one could drink it, however the normal penalty for being drunk was death.

Chocolate, understandably became an acceptable replacement for octli with higher up Aztec civilization, even then not everyone accepted chocolate as a drink. Because cacao was seen to be a luxury product, not standard in the austere life they had lived previously, many of the Aztec associated chocolate to the leisure and luxury loving people of the Gulf Coast and the lowlands it had originated in.

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Remembering that the Aztecs had no scales and that everything was counted, records of the time indicate that the palace and court of Nezahualcoyotl, the king of Texcoco was said to have used 2,744,000 beans annually, now that is a lot of beans! Now his cousin, Motecuhzoma Xooyotzin, was much wealthier, he stored more than 960,000,000 beans in his storehouse. Cacao beans were used as currency; therefore it was common for storehouses to have huge quantities of them on hand at all times.

Thank you,

Bill Anderson
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