The richest "land of cacao" in ancient Mesoamerica extended as a narrow fringe along the foot of the Pacific volcanic chain, from Soconusco (now in Chiapas, México), across the rich provinces of Zapotitlán and Suchitepéquez, the coast of Escuintla and Guazacapán, reaching the region of the Izalcos (now in El Salvador). The deep and well-drained soils of the piedmont provided optimal conditions for the crop, and there were extensive plantations at the time of the Spanish conquest. When Pedro de Alvarado entered the province of Zapotitlán, he found the land "overgrown with cacao graves and woods", enough to obstruct the advance of his army. Cacao production made these lands prized possesions, before and after the Spanish conquest.

Around AD 1500, the Aztec king Ahuitzotl undertook a long military campaign to subdue the rich cacao-producing towns of Soconusco, as far as Ayutla, on the modern border between Guatemala and Mexico. Among other valuables tribute items, this conquest secured 400 yearly loads of cacao for the Aztec kings. This must have been especially pleasing for their soldiers, since according to Bernal Díaz del Castillo, Moctezuma's guards and courtiers drank 2000 daily jars of foamy cacao.

Sixteenth-century European observes did not hesitate to characterize cacao as the "money" used throughout Mesoamerica. Peter Martyr d'Anghiera called it "admirable gold", thinking that it freeds humans from avarice, since it could not be treasured long. Gonzalo Fernández de Oviedo gathered detailed information on the prizes of diverse goods in Nicaragua: "one rabbit costs ten of these almonds, and for four almonds they give eight pomes or nisperos of that excellent fruit that they call munonzapot; and a slave costs more or less a hundred of these almonds... And since in that land there are women that give their bodies for a prize... whoever wants them for his libidinous use, gives them, for a run, eight or ten almonds, as he and she would accord." Near the end fo the sixteenth century, the daily wage of a man in the province of Verapaz was 40 cacao beans, while in Mexico they were also given as charity: "they give these cacaos to the poor indians who go about asking..."