Book Launch: The Art of Drinking Chocolate: Coconut Cups and Other Marvels from the New World

About The Book

Join us for the launch of the new book The Art of Drinking Chocolate: Coconut Cups and Other Marvels from the New World, published by Oxbow Books in September. This richly illustrated journey into the history of chocolate explores a fascinating and largely forgotten aspect of the ritual of drinking it: the use of coconuts and gourds, often mounted in silver, as luxurious drinking vessels. This tradition emerged in the Americas in the sixteenth century and endured for more than four centuries, bringing together Indigenous practices, Asian materials, European craftsmanship and changing ideas about luxury and consumption.

The presentation will also uncover the remarkable cultural history of the coconut, a fruit prized for its extraordinary versatility, providing water and food as well as fibre for rope, fuel and natural vessels for drinking. Despite its strong association with the Caribbean today, the coconut was introduced to parts of the Americas from the Philippines in the sixteenth century, becoming part of a remarkable story of trans-Pacific exchange. We will discover the extraordinary beliefs and stories of coconuts, and their magical properties. Such ideas shaped the ways in which coconut-shell chocolate cups were understood, used and valued. Some were believed to protect their owners against poison or to possess prophylactic and magical powers.

The event will surely deliver lively exploration of the intersections between food history, material culture, global trade, ritual and belief at the dawn of the early modern “Age of Wonders”. Following these remarkable objects across oceans and cultures reveals complex histories of exchange between Asia, the Americas and Europe, while illuminating changing attitudes towards luxury, consumption, magic and the natural world.

About the Author

Dr. Juan de Lara is an archaeologist and art historian who teaches at the University of Oxford. He has held leading roles across major cultural institutions, including Director of the Armenian Institute (2023–2024), Director of the Bagri Foundation (2021–2023), and Head of Cultural at Asia House (2016–2021).

Working internationally, he has advised on cultural initiatives across the Middle East and Europe, collaborating with leading organisations on projects such as the 57th International Art Exhibition of La Biennale di Venezia and the Epic Iran exhibition at the Victoria and Albert Museum.

Free and open to all.

To join online, please register here.