Explore how chocolate went from a bitter, sacred drink of gods and kings to a cheap treat by every register, and who has paid the price along the way.
You grab a chocolate bar at the checkout, and it costs less than your coffee. But for most of its history, chocolate wasn’t sweet, it wasn’t solid, and it was so valuable that people spent cacao beans like money. So how did the food of the gods end up in everyone’s pocket? Explore how a fussy rainforest tree, Maya and Aztec kitchens, European courts and a Dutch press shaped the chocolate you know, and meet the people who have grown it, often by force or for very little.
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Chapters
0:00 How did chocolate get everywhere?
0:25 The bitter beginning: from tree to foaming drink
1:09 Food of the gods: a sacred drink and cacao money
1:39 Across the ocean: Europe adds sugar
2:22 The price of sweetness: slavery and forced labor
2:53 Chocolate for everyone: the press, the bar and milk chocolate
3:37 Who grows chocolate today?
4:12 So, who shares the sweetness?
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