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CacaoCartel

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01.First contact

Upper Amazon & Mesoamerica

Cacao was first domesticated in the upper Amazon, over 5,000 years ago.

Residue in Mesoamerican vessels records its use as a drink.

Bitter, frothed, unsweetened.

FIG. 01THEOBROMA CACAO
02.Currency

Aztec Empire (14th–16th c.)

Cacao beans circulated as money.

Tribute to the empire was paid in beans.

The drink was reserved for rulers, nobles and warriors.

FIG. 02CACAO BEANS
03.Method transfer

Spanish Court (16th–17th c.)

Cacao crossed the Atlantic with Spanish ships.

Sugar and cinnamon were added.

The drink spread through the royal courts of Europe.

FIG. 03CHOCOLATE POT
04.Industrialization

Netherlands & Britain (19th c.)

1828: Van Houten patents a press that separates cocoa butter from powder.

1847: Fry & Sons sell a moldable eating bar.

Chocolate becomes a product.

FIG. 04COCOA INDUSTRY
05.Commodity

West Africa (20th c.–now)

Production shifted to West Africa.

Côte d’Ivoire and Ghana grow more than half of the world’s cocoa.

Beans trade as futures in London and New York.

FIG. 05DRYING BEANS

CacaoProductionChain.

  1. PHASE 01
  2. PHASE 02
  3. PHASE 03
  4. PHASE 04

Harvested pods

Ripe pods are cut from the trunk by hand. Each pod holds 30 to 50 beans wrapped in sweet white pulp.

EffectsofCacao.

01
Sustained mood

Lift without urgency.

Cacao carries theobromine, a stimulant far milder than caffeine. Alertness rises slowly and holds.

02
Vascular signal

Flavanols under study.

Cocoa flavanols are linked to healthier blood-vessel function in controlled trials. The dose lives in the bean, not the candy bar.

03
Ritualized reward

Pleasure shaped by melting.

Cocoa butter melts just below body temperature. The melt itself becomes part of the effect.

Hyperfixation.

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Images: free licenses (Wikimedia Commons, Unsplash, Pexels).
Credits in the cartel file below.

Obsession
Archives.

A record of excessive production, consumption and display, reflecting cacao’s fixation beyond the bar.

Kisses on Chocolate Avenue
The D Ration bar
Chocolate couture
The fourth chocolate
Sold by the slab

Kisses on Chocolate Avenue

LOCATION : Hershey, Pennsylvania, USA

COURTESY OF: Rlevse (Public domain)

(link to original source)

Streetlights shaped like foil-wrapped and unwrapped Hershey's Kisses line Chocolate Avenue. Milton Hershey began building his factory here in 1903, and planned a whole town around it: housing, schools, a park, a trolley. The candy became the street furniture.

Confiscated goods

Step 1: Chop

Preparation procedures

Step 01
Chop

Chop the chocolate finely and evenly, so it melts fast and without hot spots.

TheVault

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