You Sexy Thing

Luxurious and indulgent, hot chocolate is always a real treat. We look at the history of the drink and talk to the experts finding new ways to enjoy it in the 21st century

- Aashifa Hussain & Phil Wain

Hot chocolate. It’s the taste of sweet memories. The spoon bursting through the foil seal of a container. A steaming mug topped with whipped cream outside a café on a chilly day. A cosy night in with a loved one in front of the fire. As autumn – prime hot chocolate season – settles in, we at Caffeine thought it timely to unearth the pleasures of this wonderful drink often overlooked by the coffee industry.

Evidence tells us that chocolate was first drunk almost 3,000 years ago in the Americas, when the Mesoamericans consumed it at room temperature and revered it for its healing and medicinal properties. The British and Dutch acquired a taste for chocolate in the 1700s when, like coffee, hot chocolate came to Europe through colonialism.

Chocolate’s first recorded appearance in England was in 1657, and it was originally the preserve of the rich few who could afford it. At first, it was drunk hot, sweet and laced with cinnamon and a range of other ingredients from jasmine flowers and vanilla to musk and ambergris, according to contemporary recipes (the earthy flavouring derived from, er, sperm whale vomit).

This was around the same time coffee gained traction in Europe, so it was served in coffee houses, but it was more expensive and hence less popular – perhaps the beginning of its association with luxury.

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