Columbus on his fourth and final
voyage, stumbled upon a large Maya
canoe filled with trade goods,
cacao beans was one of these
goods.  The canoe was seized and
when the cargo was brought aboard
the ship, it was noticed that
whenever a cocoa bean fell to the
deck, the Mayas would stop and
pick it up.  Columbus was not
aware then of the value of cacao
beans, that they were the currency
of these peoples.  This was the
first introduction of chocolate to
the Europeans world.  A thousand
years prior to Columbus, the Maya
of the Yucatan Peninsula and
Central America were using the
word "cacao" to describe this
bean, writing it on beautiful
potter use to prepare chocolate
for the highest nobles and clergy
of their time.
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Like the chefs of today, the Maya
people had a wide variety of
drinks, gruels, powders, porridges
and even solid chocolates, they
were also quite good at adding
other ingredients to suit
individual tastes including a
drink that contained chili called
"chilli cacao".  Adding chili to
cocoa gives it a very pleasant
flavor, a slight burn that is very
pleasurable.
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During an archeological dig on the
Pacific coastal plain of Guatemala
an urn was found containing a
beautifully preserved stash of
cacao beans, the archeologists
believed that they were petrified.
 Sending them to a Guatemalan
expert for identification, he came
to the conclusion that they were
of the species criollo, the
highest quality of cacao beans. 
When the beans were sent to the
United States for further testing,
it was found by a
paleo-ethnobotanist he discovered
that they were not beans at all,
but perfect clay copies made from
local clay.
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While it is unknown why anyone
would go to such lengths to
imitate cacao beans, it has been
speculated that they may have been
offering it to the gods in
exchange for the very expensive
cacao beans.
Thank you,
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