Indulge in This Sweet Quiz About Chocolate

The world's most expensive chocolate truffle is made in Norwalk, Connecticut, by a company called Knipschildt Chocolatier. Their La Madeline au Truffe rings up at a whopping $250 per piece and comes packaged on a bed of sugar pearls. Best of all, you don't have to travel to Connecticut to enjoy one — you can order one online.

Today’s sweet hot cocoa drinks are much different than ancient versions. In early Central American civilizations, the bitter, spiced beverage was considered beneficial for improving energy and restoring health. Aztecs believed it to be a sacred treat from the gods, often consuming it before battle. Montezuma’s fondness for the drink introduced it to the Spanish, who spread it throughout Europe.

Since its creation in 1930 by Mars, Snickers’ combination of peanuts, nougat, and milk chocolate has made it one of the bestselling candy bars around. Starting in the 1960s, Snickers was sold as “Marathon” in the United Kingdom. After 1990, the name of the popular candy bar was changed back to Snickers, though Mars brought back the “Marathon” name in 2019 for a marketing campaign.

It takes a whopping 400 to 500 cacao beans to make just one pound of chocolate. And harvesting cacao is no easy feat. It takes up to five years for cacao trees to yield their first crop of cacao pods. The trees yield an annual harvest of 20 to 30 pods, which take four to five months to grow and ripen. Each pod contains between 40 and 50 cacao beans that have to be extracted, fermented, and dried before use.

Australian favorite Tim Tams consist of two chocolate-coated biscuits with chocolate filling. Tim Tams were first created in 1964 and were named after a thoroughbred racing horse who won the 1958 Kentucky Derby. They’re available in a variety of flavors including white and dark chocolate and caramel. The sugary sweets are exceedingly popular in Australia — upwards of 45 million packs are sold each year.

In a letter to John Adams from 1785, Thomas Jefferson — who was abroad serving as U.S. ambassador to France — predicted that Americans would soon want to start their days with hot chocolate instead of coffee or tea due to “the superiority of the article both for health and nourishment.” George and Martha Washington also enjoyed hot chocolate, sometimes mixing it with brandy or wine as a special treat.

Cacao trees thrive in wet, warm environments. It's for this reason that the Americas, Africa, and even some countries in Asia can churn out tonnes of cocoa every year. However, the leading spot goes to the West African country Ivory Coast (aka Côte d'Ivoire), who's responsible for a colossal 1.5 million tonnes of production — more than 30% of the world's chocolate.

In 1852, Sam German created a type of sweet baking chocolate, and Baker's, the company that manufactured it, named the chocolate "German's Chocolate" in his honor. Just over a century later, a Dallas newspaper included a recipe for a chocolate and coconut cake that used German's Chocolate. Word of the recipe got around, sales of the baking chocolate soared, and "German's Chocolate Cake" soon became a much-loved dessert.

When U.S. military leaders approached Hershey’s to make chocolate for emergency rations during WWII, the Pennsylvania company was already making popular treats like Kisses and Mr. Goodbars. Thus, the Army brass had a specific request: The chocolate rations should provide energy, but not taste good enough to tempt soldiers into eating them in non-emergency situations. The end result was called the “D ration bar,” which was made of chocolate, sugar, cocoa butter, skim milk powder, and oat flour.

In the 1840s, chocolate-maker Richard Cadbury decided to capitalize on the growing popularity of Valentine's Day and market his chocolates in beautiful boxes. The original boxes featured elaborate designs, with paper flowers and pictures of Cupid. Before long, the boxes took on the iconic heart shape. Though Cadbury didn't patent the box design, he's considered the first to sell Valentine's Day chocolates in heart boxes.

From ancient times through the mid-19th century, chocolate was mostly enjoyed as a drink. In 1847, the Fry chocolatier family in Bristol, England, came up with the idea of combining sugar, cacao paste, and cocoa butter to create a solid chocolate product. Today, solid chocolate is found in countless foods and confections.

Chocolate is a product of beans from the cacao tree, which is native to the Central and South American regions where civilizations like the Maya and Olmecs thrived. The Aztecs were particularly fond of cacao beans and used them as currency to exchange for food, clothing, and other goods. Some Aztec cultures valued cacao beans more than gold.

While many people may assume that Baby Ruth candy bars were named after legendary slugger Babe Ruth, Curtiss Candy Company insists the sweet is named after President Grover Cleveland's daughter, Ruth. The bars were such a hit when they hit shelves in 1921 that Babe Ruth attempted to trademark his own candy. Curtiss sued Ruth for copyright infringement upon the release of "Babe Ruth's Own Candy," and they won after sharing their naming tale.

Today you can enjoy chocolate in just about any form imaginable, but originally it was a beverage. And it wasn’t necessarily a sweet one. The Mayans of Central America — and perhaps even earlier cultures — drank chocolate with many of their meals, at celebrations, or to finalize transactions. Cacao beans were blended with chili peppers, vanilla, or honey as well as water, and then enjoyed hot or cold.

In 1928, Harry Burnett Reese, who worked on a dairy farm owned by Milton Hershey, created a chocolate-peanut butter concoction called "Penny Cups" (as he only charged a penny per candy). By the time Reese passed away in 1956, he had built a successful business producing the treat that eventually became known as Reese's Peanut Butter Cups. In the 1960s, Reese's business was bought by the Hershey Company.

Quaker agreed to fund the 1971 film as a way to market its new line of chocolate candy. Unfortunately for Quaker, the company didn’t sell Wonka Bars like the ones in the movie until 1975. Though some Wonka candy sold well, the film did a better job of promoting the enigmatic Willy Wonka character, thanks in part to a legendary performance by Gene Wilder. Quaker sold the Wonka brand to Nestle in 1988.

While it’s a staple in many sweets, purists don’t consider white chocolate a type of real chocolate because of a technicality: It’s made with cocoa butter — a derivative product of the cacao bean — and not particles of the bean itself. The origin of white chocolate is uncertain, but historians believe it was invented by Nestle in 1936 as a way to get rid of a milk powder surplus.

Prior to the late 1800s, chocolate was a delicacy often reserved for the wealthy and prepared by hand, typically as a beverage. Thanks to the invention of solid chocolate and the advancement of machinery throughout the U.S. and Western Europe, by the 1930s, candy companies had transformed into business empires and chocolate was a staple in all kinds of food stores throughout the world.

Tan M&Ms took their final bow in 1995 after Mars executives realized it was redundant to have both brown and tan versions of the candy-coated chocolate. The company turned to the public to help pick the newest color. People could call 1-800-FUN-COLOR and choose whether they wanted pink, blue, or purple. More than 10 million votes were cast and blue edged out the competition.

While countries like England and Switzerland have plenty of significance in the world of chocolate, Belgium is a global leader in both exports and on-site sales. Chocolate has been a big part of the small nation’s economy for decades. The capital city’s airport — which has five different candy stores — sells about 4,000 pounds of chocolates each day, which equates to more than 800 tons per year.