George Washington, Drinking Chocolate, and America’s 250th Birthday
- DMVCC
- 3 days ago
- 3 min read
As America celebrates its 250th anniversary, we’re revisiting the familiar story of the nation’s founding generation and uncovering a deliciously unexpected detail: chocolate was part of early American life from the home of George and Martha Washington to the hospitals of the Revolutionary War.
Unlike the chocolate most of us know today, drinking chocolate in Washington’s time was not primarily treated as a dessert. It was a valuable imported beverage often associated with nourishment, energy, comfort, and well-being. For many early Americans, chocolate occupied a space closer to coffee, tea, or a sustaining breakfast drink rather than a candy or after-dinner sweet.
That value even appeared during the Revolutionary War. In military hospitals caring for sick and wounded soldiers, chocolate showed up alongside scarce supplies like coffee, tea, vinegar, kettles, salt, bedding, and other necessities. It was part of a world where warm drinks, stimulants, and sustaining foods were used to comfort and support the sick. In other words, chocolate was not just a luxury, it was something early Americans saw as useful, nourishing, and worth preserving even in difficult times.
George Washington and his household knew chocolate well. Mount Vernon records and historical sources show that chocolate was served as a breakfast beverage for Washington and his guests. It was often consumed as a warm, frothy drink, typically prepared by grating pressed cacao into hot water or milk and whisking it into a rich beverage mixed with spices. Martha Washington was also known for enjoying a lighter chocolate drink made by steeping cacao shells like tea. In a 1789 letter, George Washington even requested “20 lb. of the shells of Cocoa nuts” for Martha’s preferred drink.
This year, in honor of America’s 250th anniversary, the DMV Chocolate & Coffee Festival is bringing that story to life in a way guests can see, smell, taste, and experience. The festival will unveil George Washington’s Chocolate Table, a one-of-a-kind live chocolate sculpture and historical tasting experience centered around George Washington, drinking chocolate, and the forgotten role of cacao in early American life.
The centerpiece will be a four-foot-tall chocolate sculpture of George Washington on horseback, hand-crafted by Paul Joachim, internationally recognized chocolate sculptor and storyteller known as The Chocolate Genius and Vice President of the Heirloom Cacao Preservation Fund.
But George Washington’s Chocolate Table will be more than a sculpture on display… Guests will be invited into a living chocolate history experience featuring live sculpting and finishing work, colonial-inspired drinking chocolate samples, historical displays, cacao education, and the aroma of drinking chocolate being prepared on-site. The experience is designed to help visitors rediscover chocolate not just as a sweet treat, but as something early Americans understood in a much richer way: a beverage, a craft, a form of hospitality, a source of nourishment, and a connection to the wider world.
Paul Joachim’s work blends large-scale chocolate artistry with education, storytelling, audience engagement, and guided tasting. For this special America 250 project, his sculpture and exhibit will serve as a tribute to the nation’s founding, the role of chocolate in early American life, and the agricultural and cultural roots of cacao.
It is a reminder that even in the earliest days of the nation, shared traditions helped bring people together. Sometimes, that tradition came in the form of a warm cup of chocolate.
The sculpture and live exhibit will appear during both DMV Chocolate & Coffee Festival weekends:
November 7–8, 2026
Adventist HealthCare Fieldhouse
Boyds, Maryland
November 14–15, 2026
Dulles Town Center Expo
Sterling, Virginia
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