
Chocolate is, of course, a food loved the world over. Until relatively recently, however, we were all under a misapprehension about its origins. It was generally assumed that the making of chocolate originated in central America around 500BC. After archaeologists in 2018 found chocolate DNA on pottery vessels and a grinding stone in the Mayo-Chinchipe ruins close to the village of Santa Ana-La Florida in Ecuador, it was clear that its birthplace was not only further south, its birthdate was far, far earlier. That chocolate residue was dated, in fact, to as long as 5,300 years ago. It will come as no surprise to chocolate lovers of the present day that this is a taste that has been delighting the human palate for a very long time indeed.
Cocoa plants originated in Ecuador’s rainforest and were, for centuries, used to make xocolatl – a drinking chocolate that was very expensive and for the exclusive use of the upper echelons of early Aztec and Mayan society as, highly sought after, it was traded across Latin America. Then, almost as soon as they arrived, the Spanish conquistadores exported it yet further – to Europe in the 1520s where it was used first as a medicine (and widely regarded as an aphrodisiac). And, again, for many more centuries chocolate was only a drink in Europe. It was not, in fact, until 1847 that Joseph Fry made solid chocolate. As highly prized in Europe as it was, in the Americas its scientific name, Theobroma, was given to the cacao tree by Carolus Linnaeus, the father of modern-day taxonomy, and translates literally as “food of the gods”.

Ecuadorian chocolate is not just the earliest we can find in history, it’s also the very highest quality you can find across the globe. This is all due to the quality of cocoa – or cacao – beans that Ecuador’s trees produce. Ecuador’s Nacional or Arriba plant has beans that are regarded among chocolatiers as having the finest aroma and a floral, fruity taste. They are, therefore, highly prized among chocolate makers the world over. At one time, cocoa beans were Ecuador’s most important export but nowadays, while the country produces around 63% of the global trade in these fine aroma Arriba beans, they account for just 5% of the world’s overall cocoa crop. Cheaper, lower quality beans, the majority of which are grown in Africa, supply the rest.
Ecuador has itself, interestingly, turned its back on mass production and instead now has a growing number of producers of high-quality artisan chocolate. I visited one of them, Indemini Baez Chocolate, in Quito’s lovely old town, listed in its entirety as a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Now more than 20 years old, Indemini Baez is an enterprise where you not only buy top quality chocolate, but you learn about the whole process of making it with demonstrations and tastings from, you might say, bean to bar. Run by a Swiss-Ecuadorian couple (a marriage of two great chocolatier nations!), Bertrand Indemini and Cristina Baez, they also have a lovely, shaded courtyard for their chocolate café.

Indemini Baez trade only with family farms and use single-origin beans (think single malt whisky for context here), and know the exact plantations that provide every batch of cocoa beans. One of the things you learn here is just what makes high quality chocolate. And, not surprisingly, it’s all down to the ingredients. And this isn’t just about the beans themselves, important as they are, but about all the extras that give texture and flavour. Interestingly, it also turns out that the better the quality of the product, the healthier it is too with less reliance on sugar and (strictly verboten at Indemini Baez) palm oil as an emulsifier. Here, for instance, they use cacao butter and barley in their unique white chocolate. While the flavourings include familiar ones, there are also some more unusual ones – black walnut, chilli, amaranth and Inca peanut. The results are lovingly wrapped by hand and all the packaging is paper based.

In the shop there are trays of individual chocolate you can mix and match in a box while there is a whole wall of chocolate bars of different flavours and cacao percentages. So, you can go for a milder flavour or something truly intense. Food of the gods indeed.
