SOME like it hot. Some like it dark. Others bake it in cookies or just savor its aroma.

It’s chocolate.

For those who see the sweet confection as a “religious experience,” the American Museum of Natural History has turned itself into a grand cathedral with its newest exhibit.

Opening today, it’s called, simply “Chocolate.”

The exhibit tells the story of this delight in delicious detail, including a 1,500-year-old piece – the Rosetta Stone of chocolate – and a bottle of recent vintage Yoo-hoo.

That ancient chunk o’chocolate was found in Honduras, scraped from a vessel discovered in a Mayan tomb.

“We immediately suspected it was chocolate,” says CUNY grad student Cameron McNeil, who was with the team that discovered it and who describes himself as a non-chocoholic.

Although the rare sample is under glass, McNeil assures us it no longer has any chocolaty smell. And no, no one at the excavation site or laboratory was tempted to take a taste – it contains poisonous mercury, which Mayans used in rituals.

Why the valentine to candy at a place known more for dinosaur bones, meteorites and a big blue whale?

Museum president Ellen Futter, who says, “Some of us consider eating chocolate a religious experience,” explains: “The exhibition blends science and culture – in a medium many of us adore. Chocolate is fun, enticing and even a passion. But it also offers a window into other cultures.”

That Central Park West window begins with artifacts from Latin America’s ancient Aztecs and Mayans, who favored chocolate in the form of a frothy drink.

Back then, it had a bitter taste to it. It wasn’t until the 16th century that the treat became more like we know it today, when Spanish conquistadors brought it back to Europe, where sugar was added to the mix.

They went wild for it in Europe, but, we’re told, not everyone could get it.

“Sweet chocolate spread through Europe as a drink of the rich,” says one exhibit installation, which shows luxurious porcelain chocolate serving sets from 1750 Germany and 1795 England and more. “The wealthy lingered over chocolate in bed,” reads one caption.

To its credit, the museum doesn’t offer only the sweet side of chocolate. There are plenty of references to the slavery in the Americas that was perpetuated by cacao bean production, and that also kept the sugar industry running.

In one small but thought-provoking showcase is a 21/2-inch flower-decorated white spoon and three little chunks of sugar. The sign reads: “The price of one teaspoon of sugar was approximately equal to the monetary value of one day in a slave’s life.”

Chocolate also meets art with several commissioned sculptures by top-flight pastry chefs, based on the museum’s collections – including reptiles, a pith helmet, a Brownie camera and a headdress-wearing maiden. Pastryarts.com’s Steve Klc, who organized the effort, says he suggested they “approach some really good pastry chefs and treat them like artists and treat chocolate like an artistic medium and not just a candy bar.”

And among the cacao tree models, magnified midge bugs (that pollinate the flowers), vintage cocoa tins, 1930s Hershey’s Kisses boxes and low-tech interactive spots that tell how a chocolate bar is made, a live electronic ticker offers commodities prices from the New York Coffee, Sugar and Cocoa Exchange downtown.

After touring “Chocolate,” head straight for the fourth floor Chocolate Café. There among the dozens of treats is the custom-made Museum Hot Chocolate Bread Tramezzini. The ingredients: Balthazar’s chocolate bread, Belgian chocolate chips, Nutella, fresh bananas and raspberries, all topped with dark melted chocolate and whipped cream.

Enjoy the free samples in the gift shop (while supplies last) on upcoming weekends, starting today. And yes, they do have milk at the café to wash it all down.

Mouth Watering Morsels

* Money “grew on trees” when Aztecs used cacao as cash.

* 18th century Italians dipped liver in chocolate and fried it.

* Each American eats an average of 12 lbs. of chocolate a year.

* Chocolate does have caffeine, but you’d have to eat 50 M&Ms to get the same amount as in a cup of decaf.