Chocolate Currency?
Did you know that the Aztecs used cacao beans as a form of currency? It was also used as a tribute tax. In the marketplace, if you wanted to buy a small rabbit, it would cost you up to 30 beans. If you wanted to buy a single large tomato, it would have cost 1 bean. A single turkey egg would have cost 3 beans. Larger purchases could cost you up to 700 beans. If you wanted to buy quachtli (cotton cloth), you could spend between 65-300 beans, depending on the quality of the quachtli. A 1.37lb (0.62kg) gold statue would have cost about 250 beans. Cacao played a significant religious role among the Aztecs. Some people would try and make counterfeit cacao beans by using wax or amaranth dough (still probably worth more than fiat, haha!)
I don't think cacao beans would last as a currency nowadays. Not because of value purposes, but because everyone would want to consume it, haha!
Courtesy of waystocap.com
