"Money Grows on Trees"

We are welcoming a Spanish International Student in our home for a few months. Knowing I like to cook, her family gave us a Spanish Cookbook. I read it cover to cover and it was full of interesting facts.

One was how the term, "money grows on trees" was actually from when cocoa was used as currency.

I looked it up of course:

"Cocoa pods grow on trees, and from Mayan and Aztec times right up until the 1850s the beans inside were used as a unit of currency. Even if cocoa is no longer used as a unit of currency, it's still incredibly valuable – and cocoa prices are still spiking to new heights...(2024)"