The Secret Life of Chocolate, Hardcover

The Secret Life of Chocolate is a book about chocolate. Not the sweet, mass-produced fatty confection most of us are familiar with, though. This is about old-school chocolate--pre-Colombian, Central American, bitter-spicy-foamy-intense-blow-your-socks-off chocolate. Chocolate beverages made with roasted beans, water, spices, and indigenous plants. The book delves into the ancient history of the human relationship with the cocoa bean tree, Theobroma cacao, dissects the pharmacological properties of chocolate to the fullest possible extent, and divulges the mythical and magical associations of human interactions with this incredible plant.

About author(s):Marcos Patchett is a medical herbalist. He graduated from Middlesex University's Herbal Medicine BSc course with first degree honours and the Elsevier science prize for plant pharmacology in 2005. He worked as a medical herbalist in King's Cross for several years, specialising in complementary care for people living with HIV, and practiced from Neal's Yard remedies' Therapy Rooms in Covent Garden and Notting Hill. He worked as a dispenser in Middlesex University's Archway training clinic, and later went on to become the clinical supervisor for Western Herbal medicine BSc and MSc courses at Middlesex's Integrative Medicine training clinic in Hendon. Marcos is also an enthusiastic student of Renaissance and Medieval astrology. He is frequently invited to give talks on contemporary herbal medicine and traditional medical astrology internationally. Marcos currently lives and works in London.