International Chocolate Day is a holiday that’s observed around the world on September 13th and is dedicated to a sweet confection that just about everyone loves. Chocolate lovers can enjoy milk or dark chocolate, bake with semisweet chocolate, or savor foods such as chocolate milkshakes, chocolate ice cream, or chocolate sauce.

No matter how a person enjoys this holiday, the one thing we can all count on is that this holiday is going to make a lot of people happy.

The History of International Chocolate Day

Chocolate is an ingredient that can be traced back thousands of years to Mesoamerica — which would include modern countries such as Mexico, Nicaragua, Honduras, and Costa Rica. People in these areas made chocolate into a hot drink that was often spiced with peppers, and the word even alludes to how it was consumed.

The word “chocolate” is a combination of the Nahuatl word “chocolātl,” which means “hot water,” and the Aztec word “xocoatl,” which means “bitter water.” Spanish colonizers brought chocolate back to Spain during the 16th century, and from there it spread to other parts of Europe and eventually the rest of the world.

Since it was expensive to process, it was usually only a treat for the rich, but that changed during the 19th century when the chocolate press was invented. This machine was able to easily squeeze roasted cocoa beans to obtain the powder used to create chocolate.

Some Super Sweet Facts About Chocolate

Below are some sweet facts about chocolate that we think everyone will appreciate. After searching the Internet high and low, we came up with the following facts that we think are pretty cool. Let’s take a quick peek at them before moving on with the rest of this holiday article. What do you say?

• Approximately 70% of cocoa comes from West Africa.
• Although cacao trees can live for over 200 years, they only produce cacao beans for the first 25 years.
• Approximately 50 million people depend on cocoa for their livelihoods around the world.

Observing International Chocolate Day

This holiday is one of the easier holidays for people to observe unless they have an aversion to chocolate or chocolate-flavored products. All a person has to do is enjoy chocolate in one of its many, many forms. Chocolate lovers can also spread the word about this holiday using the hashtag #InternationalChocolateDay. Now, if everyone will excuse us, we have to go grab a chocolate bar!