Chocolate comes from the tree called the Theobroma cacao — literally “food of the gods.”

Few of the billions who indulge in the versatile treat (celebrated every July 7) would argue with that assessment.

The cocoa bean is a complex food. It contains nearly 300 chemicals and exudes 400 separate aromas, and is brought to us by a laborious, weeks-long process from a tree that produces the fruit during only one-eighth of its 200-year life span.

The cacao tree doesn’t produce any fruit for its first handful of years. The trees are relatively delicate plants, capable of growing only in tropical climates within 20 degrees of the equator and unable to withstand temperatures below 59 degrees.

Ripe cacao pods are harvested by cutting them down with a machete or knocking them from the tree with a stick. The beans and pulp inside the pods are allowed to ferment for about a week. The product is then sun-dried for another five to seven days.

The dried beans are cleaned of debris, roasted and graded. The shells are removed and the nibs are ground and liquefied, yielding chocolate liquor, which is processed into cocoa solids and cocoa butter.

The solids and butter are mixed in varying proportions to produce the variety of chocolates. White chocolate contains no cocoa solids.

Other ingredients, such as sugar, milk powder and vanilla, are added and the batch is further ground, or “conched,” with metal beads to smooth out the product. High-quality chocolate is conched for up to 72 hours.

Chocolate originated as a drink about 4,000 years ago with either the Aztecs or the Mayans. The highly-prized drink was used in ceremonies, and Aztec emperor Montezuma drank 50 goblets a day of hot chocolate flavored with chili peppers.

Spanish conquistadors brought the drink to Europe in the early 1500s.

Cacao was processed manually until the Industrial Revolution brought steam-powered engines in to assist.

The modern era of chocolate began in 1828 when a Dutch chemist created a press to separate the cocoa butter from the solids; solid chocolate entered the market 20 years later.

Today about two-thirds of the world’s cocoa is produced in West Africa. Fifty million people depend on cocoa as a source of livelihood.

Two popular myths have been scientifically disproven. Chocolate causes neither acne nor tooth decay. Because chocolate melts at 93 degrees, just below body temperature, the sugar does not cling to the teeth.

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