How do we know?
↻ One of the pages with a moving picture
Old pots held cacao clues that were 5,300 years old.
- Chocolate starts on the cacao tree. Its flowers grow on the trunk and are pollinated by tiny flies called midges.
- A flower can become a pod of seeds in pulp. Fresh seeds are bitter, nothing like chocolate!
- The seeds ferment for 3–8 days, often under banana leaves, then dry in the sun.
- The beans are roasted, cracked into nibs and ground into a thick paste for chocolate.
Old pots from a site in Ecuador held cacao starch grains, a cacao chemical and cacao DNA. Cacao was grown there 1,500 years earlier than people thought.
The Mayo-Chinchipe people used cacao in the foothills of the Andes. People in South America were using cacao about 5,300 years ago.
Today the beans are fermented, dried and roasted before they become chocolate.
Wow number
5,300 People in South America were using cacao about 5,300 years ago!
Myth or fact?
Chocolate was first grown in Central America. Myth. The oldest signs so far are in South America, in Ecuador.
Raw cacao seeds taste like chocolate. Myth. They are bitter until they are fermented and roasted.
Think about it
Why do you think chocolate from different farms can taste different?
Where in the world?
Santa Ana-La Florida, Ecuador where the Mayo-Chinchipe people used cacao in the foothills of the Andes — 4.6° S, 79.0° W.
Where these facts come from
Every number on page 85, and who measured it
This page tells us how scientists found 5,300-year-old cacao clues in Ecuador.
Sweet discovery: New UBC study pushes back the origins of chocolate — The University of British Columbia in Canada
news.ubc.ca/2018/10/sweet-discovery-new-ubc-study-pushes-back-the-origins-of-chocolate
We checked it on 31 October 2026
This page is the science paper about the oldest known use of cacao.
The use and domestication of Theobroma cacao during the mid-Holocene in the upper Amazon — Nature, a famous science journal
nature.com/articles/s41559-018-0697-x
We checked it on 31 October 2026
This page tells us how cacao seeds are fermented, dried and roasted.
The Science of Good Chocolate — Smithsonian magazine, from the Smithsonian museums
smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/science-good-chocolate-180970658
We checked it on 31 October 2026
This page tells us about the tiny flies that pollinate cacao flowers.
You Wouldn't Have Chocolate Without Invisible Flies and Extreme Yeast — Smithsonian magazine, from the Smithsonian museums
smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/you-wouldnt-have-chocolate-without-invisible-flies-and-extreme-yeast-180954172
We checked it on 31 October 2026
This page tells us how dried beans become chocolate.
Drying and Manufacturing — Cornell University Library's chocolate exhibit
exhibits.library.cornell.edu/chocolate-food-of-the-gods/feature/drying-and-manufacturing
We checked it on 31 October 2026
Has this changed?
Yes, this one changes. The history of cacao has been pushed back before, and “oldest so far” can move again.
How chocolate is made from the bean is not going to change.
Words from this page
- cacao
- The tree that chocolate comes from, and its seeds.
- ferment
- To let seeds or dough sit while tiny living things change them.
- nibs
- Roasted, cracked pieces of cacao bean.
Try it!
Be a wrapper detective.
1. Collect two or three chocolate wrappers. 2. Find the ingredients. Look for cocoa or cacao. 3. Is cocoa listed first or later? (Ingredients are listed from most to least.)
What happens: you can tell which bar has the most cacao, no tasting needed.
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