Weaving It Together

Weaving It Together

Connecting Reading and Writing

Chocolate

The  Aztecs of Mexico knew about chocolate a long time ago. They made it into a drink. Sometimes they put hot chill peppers with the chocolate. They called the drink xocoatl, which means “bitter juice.” This is where the word chocolate comes from.

        The Spanish went to Mexico and took the drink from the land of the Aztecs back to spain. The Spanish didn’t like peppers, so they added sugar. They drink became very popular in Europe. People added different things like eggs to the chocolate drink. But everybody’s favorite was chocolate in milk instead of water.

       There was still no hard chocolate until around 1850. Then the British made the first chocolate bar. Twenty-five years later, two men in Switzerland mixed milk with the hard chocolate. Milk chocolate soon become a favorite all over the world.

 Is chocolate good for you? For hundreds of year, people thought that chocolate was good for health. Doctors told people to have a chocolate drink for headaches and many other problems. Today, there is good news for chocolate lovers. Scientists think that a little bit of chocolate is good for you! It gives you energy and has vitamins to keep your body healthy.

        The Aztecs believed that chocolate made you intelligent. Today, we do not believe this. But chocolate has a special chemical called phenylethylamine. This is 

The same chemical the body makes when a person is in love. Which do you prefer—eating chocolate or being in love?

Coffee

Coffee

  People all over the world drink coffee. It is the world's most popular drink. The French call it cafe, the Germans kaffee, the Japanese koohi, the Turkish kahve. But the people of Sweden drink the most coffee - more than five cups a day. Over half of American adults drink it every day, but not as much as in Sweden. Too much coffee is bad for your health. 

             We don't know who really discovered coffee. There is a popular story about a young man who discovered coffee in Ethiopia, a country in Africa. Arould the year 700, there was a young man called Kaldi who took care of goats. One day, he watched them while they were eating some plants. Soon after they ate the plants, the goats became very excited, and they did not sleep that night. Kaldi tried the plants himself, and he became very excited, too. Other people tried the plants. They decided to boil the plants and then drink the liquid. They too couldn't sleep well at night. This drink become popular and went from Ethiopia to Arabia. By 1200, it was a popular drink in the Arab world. The word coffee comes from the Arab word qahwah. Coffee then traveled from Arabia to Turkey, Europe, and the rest of the world.

       Coffee has been very popular in history. Many famous people loved coffee. The French writer Volataire needed seventy-two cups every day. In 1735, the German musician Johann Sebastian Bach wrote music about coffee. Another German musician, Beethoven, counted sixty beans for each cup of coffee he made. That was strong!

               There are coffee houses and coffee bars all over North America today. There are bars with all kinds of coffee. There are different sizes and flavors. There are bars where you can use the Internet while you drink your coffee!