Patrick Edward McGovern ca. 7000-6600 B.C. It was a mixed fermented beverage of rice, honey, and grape and/or hawthorn ("Crataegus pinnatifida" and "C. cuneata") fruit. The laboratory and collaborators began studying some of the most ancient chocolate from ancient Mesoamerica (ca. 1400-1100 B.C.) in 2004 Jars from Puerto Escondido in Honduras were in the shape of the cacao ("Theobroma cacao") pod or fruit, as if to advertise the contents as being a chocolate beverage. The fruit's sweet pulp contains about 15% sugar, which naturally ferments to a 5 to 7% alcoholic beverage. This beverage might have led to the domestication of the tree.
Arturo Gómez-Pompa y realidades. Bol. Soc. Bot. Mexico. 63: 33-41. Whikus, R., M. de la Cruz, L. Mota-Bravo, A. Gomez-Pompa. 1998. Genetic diversity and relationships of wild cacao (Theobroma cacao L.) in southern Mexico. Theoret. And Appl. Genet. 96: 621-627. Arturo Gómez-Pompa Arturo Gómez-Pompa (born 1934 in Mexico City) is a well-known tropical biologist who is currently a scientific advisor for the Tropical Research Center of the Universidad Veracruzana (CITRO) and a distinguished professor emeritus of botany at the University of California, Riverside. He made various notable contributions to the field of tropical ecology over the years through the creation of databases