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The seed contains a lot of fat, and is used to produce cocoa butter. Cocoa butter is then used to produce chocolate.
Most people will know Cocoa as a ground powder they use to produce chocolate.
Chocolate and cocoa are made from the beans of the cacao tree. The tree might have first come from the foothills of the Andes Mountains near the Amazon River and the Orinoco River in South America. The tree was brought to Central America by the ancient Mayas, and was grown in Mexico by the Toltecs and later by the Aztecs.
Cocoa was an important product in Pre-Columbian Mesoamerica. People who told the story of the conquest of Mexico by Hernán Cortés said that when Moctezuma II, emperor of the Aztecs, ate dinner he took no other drink than chocolate, served in a golden goblet and eaten with a golden spoon. Flavored with vanilla and spices, his chocolate was whipped into a froth that dissolved in the mouth. No less than 50 pitchers of the drink were prepared for the emperor each day, and 2000 more for nobles of his court.
Chocolate was brought to Europe by the Spaniards and became a popular drink by 1700.