Chicle is a natural gum that comes from the sap of the sapodilla tree, which grows in Central American rainforests. For thousands of years, the Maya and Aztec peoples chewed chicle the way people today chew gum. They would cut into the bark of sapodilla trees, collect the milky sap that oozed out, and boil it down into a chewy substance.

In the late 1800s, an American inventor named Thomas Adams discovered chicle and realized it made excellent chewing gum. For almost a century, chicle was the main ingredient in chewing gum. Workers called chicleros would venture deep into the jungle, tap the trees, and carry heavy blocks of chicle on their backs.

Today, most chewing gum uses synthetic ingredients instead of natural chicle, partly because chicle became expensive and partly because companies wanted gum that was cheaper to produce. But some gum makers still use real chicle, and you can sometimes find it in specialty stores. The sapodilla tree also produces a sweet fruit that tastes like brown sugar.