Cocoa is a brown powder made from cacao beans, the seeds of the cacao tree that grows in tropical regions near the equator. When you make hot chocolate on a cold winter morning, you're using cocoa powder mixed with hot milk or water and sugar.

The cacao tree, native to Central and South America, produces large pods that contain the precious beans inside. After harvesting, workers ferment and roast these beans, then grind them and remove most of the fat (called cocoa butter). What remains is cocoa powder, the key ingredient in chocolate bars, chocolate chip cookies, brownies, and countless other treats.

The Aztecs and Mayans treasured cacao beans so much they used them as currency and made a bitter ceremonial drink from them. When Spanish explorers brought cacao to Europe in the 1500s, people added sugar and created the sweet chocolate we know today.

People sometimes confuse cocoa with cacao, but they're different stages of the same thing: cacao refers to the raw bean and tree, while cocoa is the processed powder used for baking and beverages. When you see “cocoa” in a recipe, it means that familiar brown powder that transforms ordinary ingredients into chocolate magic.