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Welcome to the History Extra podcast, fascinating historical conversations from the makers of BBC History Magazine.

It's one of the world's most popular treats and a significant part of the global economy.

But how much do you really know about the history of chocolate? Well, for today's

Everything You Wanted to Know episode, we're joined by the food historian and author Emma K,

to explore the long journey from the first cultivation of cacao to the chocolate bars we enjoy

today. Putting the questions to Emma was Rob Atar.

So Emma, I wonder if we could start with just a really basic question. What is chocolate?

How can we define it? Well, in terms of its botanical origins, it is a tree, not a very large tree.

It's about 17 foot. It grows mostly in sort of mid and South America.

And it has lots of lovely little flowers. And when the flowers die, it produces pods. And in those

pods, you get about 30 or 40 different beans and then those beans are what your

chocolate is and you then roast those down or they're dry in the sun and then they're

pulverized and ground down and then you basically mix it with some sort of liquid and that's

your chocolate.

But obviously it's a really ancient process and it goes right back about 4,000 years to the

...