bogus address wrote:

>>>>[Aztec chocolate] often included hot peppers of one sort or another and
>>>>was considered an aphrodisiac. The Aztecs reserved it for royalty.
>>>>Moctezuma reportedly drank 50 cups of it a day.
>>
>>Gary and I made some to see what it would be like. We used bittersweet
>>chocolate, poor quality countryside Mexican stuff he brought back, to
>>more closely approximate what they would have had. It was gritty, but
>>likely not as much so as the original. We whisked it into hot water,
>>foaming it up, adding tiny snippets of chile de arbol. No sugar.
>>It was awful *and* it burned. We didn't know exactly how much pepper
>>to add. Extremely bitter, gritty, astringent and hot. The Aztecs had
>>no concentrated sweeteners according to him.
>
>
> Wouldn't the Aztecs have made it directly from cocoa pods? Where
> would any grit come from that way?

Cocoa pods are processed before they become chocolate. Then they're
ground. The grinding process didn't make a smooth result. It wasn't
until industrial processes were applied that the particles were made
small enough not to be noticeable.

> I doubt the emperor of a country with a few million subjects needed
> to put up with poor-quality anything.

It wasn't seen as poor quality. It was the only quality available.

> Particularly when there was
> a steady demand for hundreds of human sacrifice victims every year.

The connection escapes me.

Pastorio