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The tree grows wild in the forests, but was cultivated by the Indians before the arrival of white men, and they prepared from it a drink which they called "chocolatl." It was bitter, but the addition of sugar and vanilla made it palatable. This tree is called the cocoa-tree. Still better known and more popular is another drink coffee.
Though chorote, which is a very weak infusion of cacao, is considered on the coast to be a very ancient beverage, no historical fact proves that chocolate, or any preparation whatever of cacao, was known to the natives of Venezuela before the arrival of the Spaniards. Down to the sixteenth century travellers differed in opinion respecting the chocolatl.
Ocelotl is ocelot; Tomatl is tomata; Chilli is the Spanish chile and our chili; Cacahuatl is cacao or cocoa; and Chocolatl, the beverage made from the cacao-bean with a mixture of vanilla, is our chocolate. Cacao-beans were used by the Mexicans as money.
It is twenty years since it was first exported to Europe; and the first consignees made large profits, as the resin, which was worth scarcely anything in the Philippines, became very popular and was much sought in Europe. Chocolatl was the term given to a particular kind.
"Chocolate" is, therefore, a much wider term than "cocoa," embracing both the food and the drink prepared from the cacao, and is the Mexican name, chocolatl, slightly modified, having nothing to do with the word cacao, in Mexican cacauatl.
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