The majority of our products within this range fall under Chilli & Chocolate...
Here's some great supportive copy for your pages - ensure you deeplink where you can to Hotel Chocolat (i've made some simply amend with your CJ links)
Chilli and Chocolate
• The Mayans lived in Latin America in approximately 250AD - 900AD
• The Mayans used chilli in a drink called “xocoatl”. (Pronounced SHOCK - o - LA - tlle)
• Xocoatl roughly translates as “bitter water”
• The drink was made by roasting cocoa beans, then grinding them down and removing the shell. The powder was mixed with water and spices, especially Chilli. It was then poured from vessel to vessel from a great height back and forth to create froth, rather like that on top of a cappuccino!
• The drink was used as part of religious ceremonies and celebrations i.e. To give thanks or to ask for rain or a good harvest, when boys come of age etc
• After a while the Maya culture in Latin America died out and the Aztec culture became established.
• They also used the
spicy chilli drink as part of their ceremonies rather like the Maya before them.
• The Aztec used to give the spicy drink to slaves on the eve of their sacrifice to bewitch them into joy and cheerfulness for their final dance before they were offered to the Gods.
• Chilli continued to be used to “spice up” the chocolate drink throughout the ages, however when cocoa came over to Europe, the Europeans didn’t like the spicy taste therefore more sweet ingredients were added to the
chocolate drink to make it more palatable i.e. Vanilla and honey
• However, Chilli was still on the menu in many of the famous Chocolate Houses in 17th Century London.
• Samuel Pepys, the famous diarist, mentions
Chilli being added to the chocolate drinks in some of his writings.
• The first recording of cocoa being used in cooking (apart from the drink) was a Mexican dish using chicken and chilli.
• During the industrial revolution, the use of chilli in chocolate diminished, however as the vision of Hotel Chocolat is to make UK chocolate exciting again, they have returned to the real roots of chocolate and now have a number of
chocolates that have chilli as part of the ingredients i.e.
Purist chilli with peppercorns
Hope this all helps!
Cheers, Chris
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