So, where did this unusual partnership come from?

 

The first recorded use of the two ingredients dates back to the Mayans, who lived between 250 and 900 CE.

 

Chilli peppers would be mixed along with cocoa seeds and ground into a paste. Before the seeds would be processed into paste, they had been harvested and roasted.

 

The mix would be made into a fiery chocolate drink.

 

The Aztec’s were just as enthusiastic about the combination of chillies and chocolate as the Mayans.

 

The Aztec’s simply called their take on the drink xocolatl, which means “bitter water”. We imagine it was known as this because nothing was added to the mix that would sweeten the kick.

 

Drinking chillies and chocolate said a lot about what status you held in society. Many Aztec rulers enjoyed the beverage along with priests and the superior elite classes.

 

Eventually, Europeans began adding fat and sugar and melting it down so that it could be solidified into a solid bar, thus revolutionising the cocoa pastes form and establishing the chocolate bar. Both ingredients then became partnered in this form.

Chilli chocolate is now a blend made by fine chocolatiers across Belgium, France and Switzerland.