11 facts you didn't know about chocolate from around the world

2.    Marie Antoinette and everyone at the Palace of Versailles in France believed hot chocolate was an aphrodisiac.


3.    Spanish friars took chocolate to various monasteries after the sweet treat was introduced to Europe, helping to spread the love around the continent.

4.    And it turns out Europeans are now the biggest eaters of chocolate, with the average Brit, Swiss or German eating approximately 11kg of chocolate a year. 


5.    A pair of British inventors created solid chocolate back in 1847, calling it “eating chocolate”, by mixing cocoa butter, sugar and chocolate liquor.

6.    Milk chocolate was invented in Switzerland in 1875, after eight years of Daniel Peter trying to make the recipe work. 


7.    The first ever chocolate bar was made in England by Cadbury in 1842.

8.    Almost 70% of the world’s cacao is now grown in Africa, with The Ivory Coast being the largest single producer.


9.    Chocolate milk was invented in the early 1700s in Jamaica by Irish botanist Sir Hans Sloane, after he couldn’t stomach plain milk.

10.    Brussels Airport is the biggest seller of chocolate in the world, and shops there sell more than 800 tonnes of chocolate every year.

11.    There is a chocolate hotel in St Lucia created by none other than Hotel Chocolat, where the restaurant menus are infused with the rich flavour in nearly every dish. Discover more about it here.