Chocolates make the best gifts and there is a whole industry that is churning out these goodies exclusively for you. But where did chocolate originate from? We'll give you the answers. The botanical name of the cocoa tree, from which chocolate is made, is Theobroma Cacao. The first word in Greek for 'food of the Gods'. Depending on whom you believe, this seductive, substance is an effective mood lifter and good for the heart or the healer of spots, migraine, obesity and stressed-out nerves. Now, we learn that chocolate has been around for a lot longer than it was previously thought. Traces of it have .been found in pots discovered in Mayan graves in Mexico, some of which date back to 600 BC, which pushes back the earliest chemical evidence of chocolate by more than 1000 years. Chocolate is made from the seeds or 'beans' of the cocoa tree-the leathery cocoa pod contains upto 100 beans. Aztecs in Mexico and Mayans in Belize worshipped the tree and used its beans as a form of currency. They also hit upon the idea of crushing the beans, boiling them in water, then adding spices and drinking the resulting hot, frothy liquid. In the 16th century, Spaniards who landed in Mexico wrote of how the Aztec Emperor Moctezuma drank chocolate 'from pure gold cups with great reverence.' Gradually, chocolate became a part of European life. Rich aristocrats and the privileged elite adopted the habit of drinking it during the day. Chocolate drink gained in popularity when sugar was added to it and coffee houses began to serve it. Cocoa plantations sprang up all over the world to meet the growing demand and as the export of Cocoa beans increased, chocolate became more easily available to the ordinary people in Europe. The first attempt at making solid chocolate came in the early 1800s, when the cocoa beans were ground into a powder, heated, sweetened and pressed into a mould. The resulting product resembled the chocolate truffles we eat today but had a short shelf life. (1/6) It was a Dutch chemist and food scientist, Coenrad Van Houten, who in 1825 perfected the extraction of cocoa butter from beans, which enabled the production of solid bars we would recognise as chocolate today. In the 1880s, Rodolphe Lindt of Switzerland started adding extra cocoa to make a product that melted at 36°C. Around the same time Daniel Peter, a Swiss candy-maker, added condensed milk developed by Henri Nestle to chocolate, making a sweeter and smoother variety of what is now one of the world's favourite foods. a) On the basis of your understanding of the above passage, make notes on it using (minimum 4) and a format you consider suitable. Also supply an appropriate title to it. (5)headings and sub-headings. Use recognisable abbreviations wherever necessary b) Write a summary of the above passage in about 80 words.
Deepanshu Yadav 1 year, 10 months ago
2Thank You