Who brought cocoa beans to Europe?

Christopher Columbus brought a few cocoa beans back to show Ferdinand and Isabella of Spain, but it was the Spanish friars who first introduced chocolate to Europe more broadly. It wasn't until the Spanish conquest of the Aztecs that chocolate could be imported to Europe, where it quickly became a court favorite. The first recorded shipment of chocolate to Europe for commercial purposes was in a shipment from Veracruz, Mexico to Sevilla in 1585.