Chocolate Drinking These Spanish tiles from 1710 illustrate the new practice of preparing and drinking hot chocolate. Originating in the New World, chocolate was one of the many new foods imported to Europe in the wake of the voyages of discovery. The first Spanish chocolate mills opened in the mid-seventeenth century, and consumption of chocolate rapidly increased. The inclusion of these tiles in the decoration of a nobleman’s house testifies to public interest in the new drink.

(Detail of ceiling tile, from Teia, Spain/Museu de Ceramica, Barcelona, Spain/Album/Art Resource, NY)