Did you know that …?

In the 15th century, cocoa beans were so rare that Aztecs used them as currency. Just like today, each thing had its value. For example, one rabbit was sold for 10 cocoa beans, one turkey for 40 cocoa beans and one slave for 100 cocoa beans!

Did you know that the scientific name of the cocoa tree is Theobroma cacao L.?

The letter L.  stands for the surname of Carl von Linné, the Swedish natural scientist who laid the foundations of modern botanical and zoological systematic nomenclature (binomial names of plants and animals). He classified more than 6,000 plants and more than 4,400 animal species. He became so famous that it was sufficient to just add the letter “L”. (He is the only scientist, who had this distinction!)

And what does “Theobroma” mean?

In Greek, theos means god and broma is food. Thus, the name means “food of the gods”. And the word cocoaoriginates from the word cacahuatl from the Nahuatl language, part of the Uto-Aztecan family of languages, spoken by 1.5 million indigineous Mexicans today.