ipl-logo

The Cocoa Tree: Maya, Toltec, And Aztec Culture

1023 Words5 Pages

According to Myhrvold, the cocoa tree was discovered by the Maya, Toltec, and Aztec peoples before 3000 years ago. Theobroma is the latin name for cocoa, which literally means “food of the gods”.
The chocolate is produced from a fruit called the cacao pod, that has an ovoid form and its ripening colour is yellow to orange. The seeds are taken from the Cacao pod dried and fermented to produce the cocoa bean that is used to create chocolate. Did you know that a cocoa tree needs between 3 to 5 years to bear fruits and that each tree produce 1000 beans a year (Bray, 2012)? One of the most important Commodities nowadays is chocolate, which is made from the cocoa tree. For many chocolate-producing counties, Commodities chocolate plays an enormous role in raising the country’s economy and lifestyle. The cocoa trade spread around the world in late fifteenth century, it’s considered one of the most important tools that give the country authority among other nations. Nowadays, many …show more content…

Western African countries supply more than 70% of the world cocoa, mostly Ghana and Ivory Coast (World Cocoa Foundation, 2012). The majority of the cocoa which grow and harvest in Western Africa is sold to chocolate companies that includes the largest and most known companies in the world such as Hershey’s, Mars, and Nestle (Mistrati, Miki, Romano, & U. Roberto, 2012). The high demand of chocolate increases child labor, human trafficking, and slavery. The average salary of a cocoa farmer is less than $2 per day, which is below poverty line. The outcome of low paid salary is child labor so they can keep the prices low (Kramer & Anna, 2013). Most of the Western African children start working at a young age because of the poverty, so they have to work to support their families. Most of the kids end up in cocoa farms, and others get sold to traffickers or farm

Show More
Related
683 Words | 3 Pages

(“Cocoa”). Chocolate has been a big deal since it was considered food from the Gods in the beginning. “[Around the 1893 Milton S. Hershey decided to go into the chocolate business after

Read More
849 Words | 4 Pages

Many people love chocolate, they go to the store and it's easy for them to just buy a chocolate bar. Brands like Hershey, M&M, and KitKat rely on cocoa farms to provide them cocoa, the main ingredient for chocolate. But many don't stop to think about where the chocolate they love came from and the process it goes through. Chocolate originally started as a drink. The ancient Aztecs of Mexico would brew cocoa beans to make a chocolaty delicious drink, but chocolate as we know today didn't start till the early 1800's.

Read More
725 Words | 3 Pages

Everyday in the Ivory Coast, as well as in Ghana, Nigeria and Cameroon, about 300,000 children are forced to pick cocoa beans that will be sold to big chocolate companies like Nestle and Cargill. About 6,000 of these children are treated like slaves.” (“Is It Fair to Eat Chocolate?” Paragraph 3 by Deborah Dunn). The big chocolate industries who buy from cocoa farms that have child labor often don’t pay close to a fair amount of money.

Read More
266 Words | 2 Pages

A Gift of Cocoa Beans In 1519, the explorer Hernán Cortés arrived with a fleet of ships from Spain in what is now southern Mexico. There he came into contact with the Aztec people and their ruler, Montezuma. Montezuma welcomed Cortés and gave him a gift of cocoa beans. Cortés and his men were among the first Europeans to see and taste cocoa beans.

Read More
698 Words | 3 Pages

(Document C) Since people who grow chocolate sell it for very little, they end up getting a very small amount of the money, 10% of the value of the bar to be exact. Most of the money that is made goes to the owners, the workers only get about 5% of the chocolate bars which is spread out between all the workers, which makes the people very poor, and unable to afford basic necessities. “Cocoa growers are typically illiterate, and use outdated growing methods because they can’t afford them. Their communities have poor education and healthcare systems, with a lack of electricity and decent sanitization, with the only water available being a communal well.”

Read More
392 Words | 2 Pages

Throughout the first three stages, both Mirabella and her sister Jeanette are compared to each other because of the differences in their ways to adapt to human culture. They are compared when getting nametags, learning to walk, and learning to ride bicycles. To begin with, in stage one when Jeanette receives her nametag she is very cooperative and lets the nuns slap the nametag on her. To prove that this happens, the narrator says, “She slapped on a nametag…” (pg 239). This shows how well Jeanette is adapting to human culture.

Read More
1223 Words | 5 Pages

A 2005 by USDOL (2006) survey found that 92% of children carried heavy loads, among them some as young as five years of age. Children are exposed to many hazards while farming cocoa. O'Keefe (2016) stated that a Tulane survey found that 37% of kids farming cocoa had suffered “cuts.” In addition, there were only 63.5% of children attending school. A recent study of children ages nine to eighteen in Ghana found that labor not only keeps children from attending school, but also hinders their learning ability.

Read More
152 Words | 1 Pages

One important reason that chocolates popularity spread was it was used as currency. This increased the value of chocolate because now it wasn't just used for religious purposes thanks to Christopher Columbus on his fourth encounter in 1502 he was the first european

Read More
1687 Words | 7 Pages

However, 45 percent of the chocolate that we consume are made in Ivory Coast. At the first glance this is not a bad idea because many companies outsource their activity to other less developed countries because of the lower labor Coast. But in Ivory Coast chocolate farmers kidnap and

Read More
355 Words | 2 Pages

Have you ever wondered how chocolate bar was made and what the main ingredient is? Chocolate is such an interesting thing to talk about because it has such a long history dating back 4000 B.C. (Klein) I will be telling you why it was so sacred to the Mayans and Aztec. I will be telling you who used it. I will tell you how much is consumed every year. Frist the Europeans used along with the Mayans, Aztecs and the Dutch.

Read More
657 Words | 3 Pages

The history of chocolate begins in Mesoamerica which is what the area of Mexico and Central America at the time was referred to as. In 2007, anthropologists announced the discovery of cacao residue on pottery excavated in Honduras that could date back from 1400 BCE (before common era) or even 1700 BCE. The sweet pulp of the cacao fruit was apparently fermented into an alcoholic beverage of the time. Not really chocolate

Read More
1034 Words | 5 Pages

The Western Post War Era’s Push for Social Transformation World War ll left destruction, death, and the beginnings of change. After such conflict, citizens in the United States began to question the values and systems that had led to such devastation. This questioning paved the way for a new wave of thinking emphasizing social justice, equality, and human rights. During 1963-1991, Western society underwent a radical post-war social transformation. In the United States, this social transformation had numerous manifestations and a great deal of influence.

Read More
1213 Words | 5 Pages

Cadbury chocolate company is one of the largest chocolate companies of the world. Chocolate has been often associated with emotions and romance of celebration in an affordable budget. During the past few decades increase in demand of chocolate and related products simultaneously increased the demand in supply of high quality cocoa bean. In 2000-2001 it was deliberately revealed that in the production of raw material i.e. cocoa bean for chocolate, child slavery had been involved as in farms of Côte d'Ivoire to achieve target goals for their chocolate production. This controversy hits the Cadbury Company and out sparks many out leashes against the company.

Read More
647 Words | 3 Pages

Later on, vanilla, chili peppers, honey and other spices were added to diversify this invigorating drink, which was extremely valuable among Aztec, Olmec and Mayan civilizations, who believed that it possessed spiritual qualities due to its mood enhancing ability. The Mayans worshiped a god of cacao, and a drink made of cacao beans was a privilege of rulers, warriors and nobles. The Aztecs liked it so much that, when in the 14th century they started to dominate Mesoamerica and were unable to cultivate cacao plants in the dry highlands of central Mexico, they used cacao beans as a currency to trade for goods with the Mayans. Spanish conquistador Herman Cortes brought cacao beans to Europe in the 1500s, were it was still consumed as a royal drink but with addition of cane sugar and cinnamon. For more than a hundred years Spain kept the chocolate drinks’ recipe a secret, until it made its way to France, when a daughter of Spanish King Phillip III got married to the French King Louis

Read More
1173 Words | 5 Pages

3.in that hundred years cacao plantations spread, through out england, Dutch, and France F.Now lets fast forward a few more thousands years according to “History.com” in there article properly titled “The Sweet History of Chocolate” it was in 1847 where a british chocolate companyby the namr of J.S. Fry&Son created the first solid edible chocolate bar that we all know today. Transistion:Now that we all know a breif history of chcolate let me talk about or even better let me have you guys taste the 3 kinds of chocolate the we are most used today. (hand out chocolate bags to class while talking, ask class to let chocolate melt in mouth not chew) III. The first kinds of chocolate I would want you to try it the milk chocolate that is the light brown one.

Read More

More about The Cocoa Tree: Maya, Toltec, And Aztec Culture

Related Topics

Open Document