Nº 32
Cacao Was Money - and Yes, People Counterfeited It
The Aztecs paid with chocolate. A rabbit cost 30 cacao beans, a turkey cost 100 - and yes, people counterfeited them.
The Mexica - the Aztecs - paid for things with chocolate. Not metal coins. Cacao beans were literally money. A rabbit? Thirty beans. A turkey? A hundred. Your spare change grew on a tree.
We know the prices because a 1545 tax list survives. A turkey hen: a hundred beans. A rabbit: thirty. An avocado: three. A tomato: one bean.
Almost nobody could actually drink it
Here's the twist: almost nobody could drink it. The frothed chocolate was for royalty, nobles, warriors and merchants - everyone else spent it but couldn't taste it. That's the core irony: you handled the money without ever getting the treat.
Whole provinces paid taxes in cacao
Conquered provinces paid their tribute in cacao - bins of beans hauled to the capital, recorded in the Codex Mendoza. The empire literally went to war over chocolate-growing land.
And yes - people counterfeited it
Where there's money, there's forgery. Crooks hollowed out the shells and stuffed them with mud, ash, dough or avocado pits - fake beans nearly impossible to tell from the real thing. That's not a legend either: the friar Sahagún wrote it down in the Florentine Codex. The joke is on the counterfeiters, never on the culture.
So next time chocolate feels priceless - remember, it once literally was the price. The original money that grew on trees. Mexican by name. American by history.
| Claim | Confidence | Sources |
|---|---|---|
| In the Mexica (Aztec) and wider Mesoamerican economy, cacao beans served as everyday currency - small change for market transactions. | Solid | Mexicolore - "Beanz meanz money!" · Cornell University Library - "When Money Grew on Trees" |
| A 1545 Nahua price list (Tlaxcala) records exchange rates in cacao beans: a good turkey hen ≈ 100 full beans (120 shrunken), a turkey cock ≈ 300, a small rabbit ≈ 30, a newly picked avocado ≈ 3, a ripe avocado or large tomato ≈ 1 bean. | Solid | Mexicolore - "Beanz meanz money!" · Cornell University Library - "When Money Grew on Trees" |
| The frothed chocolate drink was restricted to the elite - royalty, nobility, warriors, and long-distance (pochteca) merchants - while commoners used beans as money without drinking them. | Solid | Mexicolore - "How Aztec & Maya chocolate was prepared" · Cornell University Library - "When Money Grew on Trees" |
| Conquered provinces paid tribute in cacao - bins/loads of beans delivered to the Aztec capital (recorded in the Codex Mendoza); cacao regions were targets of conquest. | Solid | Smarthistory / ArtsQ - Aztec tribute in the Codex Mendoza · Cornell University Library - "When Money Grew on Trees" |
| Counterfeit cacao beans were real: dishonest sellers hollowed out shells and refilled them with amaranth dough, wax, mud/ash, or avocado pits - documented in Sahagún's Florentine Codex. | Solid | Mexicolore - "Beanz meanz money!" (quoting the Florentine Codex) · Cornell University Library - "When Money Grew on Trees" |
