chocolate

elover's guide to chocolate the food of love

History of Chocolate

The origins of chocolate can be traced back to the ancient Maya and Aztec civilisations in Central America, who first enjoyed 'chocolate'; a much-prized spicy drink made from roasted cocoa beans. Chocolate was exclusively for drinking until the early Victorian era, when a technique for making solid 'eating' chocolate was devised. Throughout its history, whether as a cocoa, a drinking chocolate beverage or confectionery treat, chocolate has been a much sought after food.

The story of cocoa begins with cocoa trees, which, for thousands of years, grew wild in the tropical rain forests of the Amazon basin and other tropical areas in Central and South America. Hundreds of years before cocoa was brought to Europe, the Maya Indians and the Aztecs recognised the value of cocoa beans both as an ingredient for their special drink and as currency.

Cocoa and Maya Civilisation

It was the Maya Indians, an ancient people whose descendants still live in Central America, who first discovered the delights of cocoa as long ago as 600 AD.

The Maya lived in the Yucatan Peninsula; a tropical area in what is now Southern Mexico, where cocoa trees grew wild. They harvested cocoa beans from the trees in the rain forest, then cleared areas of lowland forest to grow their own cocoa trees, in the first known cocoa plantations.

Chocolate was made from roasted cocoa beans, water and a little spice: and it was the most important use of cocoa beans, although they were also valued as a currency. An early explorer visiting Central America found that:

4 cocoa beans could buy a pumpkin
10 could buy a rabbit, 100 a slave.

Because cocoa beans were valuable, they were given as gifts on occasions such as a child's coming of age and at religious ceremonies. The Maya had complicated religious beliefs, with many gods. Ek Chuah, the merchant god, was closely linked with cocoa and cocoa fruits were used at festivals in his honour. Merchants often traded cocoa beans for other commodities, and for cloth, jade and ceremonial feathers.

Maya farmers transported their cocoa beans to market by canoe or in large baskets strapped to their backs. Wealthy merchants travelled further, employing porters, as there were no horses, pack animals or wheeled carts in Central America at that time. Some ventured as far as Mexico, the land of the Aztecs, introducing them to the much-prized cocoa beans.

The Aztec Empire

The Aztecs were an ancient nomadic people who founded a great city in the Valley of Mexico in 1325: Tenochtitlan. In 1521 this prosperous city and its culture were destroyed by the Spanish, who later rebuilt it and renamed it Mexico City.

'Chocolate' (in the form of a luxury drink) was consumed in large quantities by the Aztecs: the drink was described as 'finely ground, soft, foamy, reddish, bitter with chilli water, aromatic flowers, vanilla and wild bee honey'.

The dry climate meant the Aztecs were unable to grow cocoa trees, and had to obtain supplies of cocoa beans from 'tribute' or trade. ('Tribute' was a form of taxation paid by provinces conquered by the Aztecs in wars.)

By the time the Spanish invaded Mexico in the 16th century, the Aztecs had created a powerful empire, and their armies conquered Mexico. Tributes in the form of food, cloth and luxury items such as cocoa beans flowed into Tenochtitlan. The Aztecs were superstitious: they had many gods and believed that their world was constantly threatened by catastrophe. One god, Quetzalcoatl, creator god and provider of agriculture, was particularly associated with cocoa beans. Great temples were built to honour him in Tenochtitlan; Moctezuma, Emperor of Mexico and ruler of the Aztecs in the early 16th century particularly revered him.

Quetzalcoatl is further linked with the story of cocoa and chocolate. An old Mexican Indian myth explains that he was forced to leave the country by a chief god, but was lovingly remembered by his devoted worshippers, who hoped he would return. Until then they still had his legacy: the cocoa tree. When Don Hernan Cortes, the Spanish conquistador, arrived in 1517 with his fleet of galleons, the Aztecs thought that he was Quetzalcoatl returning: they were soon to realise he was a cruel conqueror.

Don Cortes

The voyage which led Don Cortes to discover Mexico and the Aztec civilisation began in 1517 when he set sail from Cuba with 11 ships and 600 men, all seeking fame and fortune in the 'New World'. Landing on the Mexican coast near Veracruz, he decided to make his way to Tenochtitlan to see for himself the famed riches of Emperor Moctezuma and the Aztec empire.

It was Moctezuma who introduced Don Cortes to his favourite drink, 'chocolate' - served in a golden goblet. Moctezuma is said to have consumed several goblets of 'chocolate' before entering his harem, leading to the mythical belief that it had aphrodisiac properties.

In May 1520 the Spanish attacked a peaceful Aztec festival and Moctezuma was killed: by July the Aztecs had forced the Spanish out of the city of Tenochtitlan. But after regaining their strength, the Spanish and their allies held the city siege for 75 days, and its fall marked the end of the Aztec civilisation.

Cortes was made Captain General and Governor of Mexico. When he returned to Spain in 1528 he loaded his galleons with cocoa beans and equipment for making the chocolate drink. Soon 'chocolate' became a fashionable drink enjoyed by the rich in Spain, but it took nearly a century for the news of cocoa and chocolate to spread across Europe, as the Spanish kept it a closely guarded secret.

First Cocoa Makers

Cocoa trees need specific climatic conditions to thrive. As the popularity of chocolate grew, so the number of cocoa growing countries in the world increased. Cocoa plantations were started in the West Indies, the Far East and Africa, and the price of cocoa beans gradually began to fall, as greater quantities came onto the market.

It wasn't until 1853 that significant reductions in import duties were made and, with the Industrial revolution making transport easier, chocolate became available to a large percentage of the population.

As more people could afford to drink chocolate, interest in its manufacture grew. Some of the earliest cocoa makers were apothecaries (early chemists) who became interested because of the supposed medicinal properties of cocoa. They had the skills and equipment necessary to heat, measure and blend the ingredients. Both Fry's of Bristol and Terry's of York, two well-known names in chocolate, were founded by apothecaries.

Other manufacturers became involved in cocoa making through the grocery trade. John Cadbury began by dealing in tea and coffee in his Birmingham shop, while Rowntree's of York was founded by branching out from the family grocery business.

Chocolate was exclusively for drinking until early Victorian times, when a technique was perfected for making solid 'eating' chocolate.

Chocolate Across Europe

Christopher Columbus is said to have brought the first cocoa beans back to Europe from his fourth visit to the 'New World' between 1502 and 1504. However, the many other treasures on board his galleons were far more exciting, and the humble cocoa beans were neglected.

It was his fellow explorer, the Spanish Conquistador Don Hernan Cortes, who first realised the commercial value of the beans. He brought cocoa beans back to Spain in 1528 and gradually the custom of drinking chocolate spread across Europe, reaching England in the 1650s.

Once Don Cortes had provided the Spanish with a supply of cocoa beans and the equipment to make the chocolate drink, a Spanish version of the recipe was devised. Monks in monasteries, known for their pharmaceutical skills, were chosen to process the beans and perfect the drink to Spanish tastes. Cinnamon, nutmeg and sugar were added, the chilli pepper was omitted and it was discovered that chocolate tasted even better served hot.

Cocoa beans were in short supply, so for nearly a century the special chocolate drink recipe was a closely guarded secret.

English and Dutch sailors, who found cocoa beans in the Spanish 'treasure' ships captured as they returned from the New World, failed to recognise their importance. The precious beans were thrown overboard by angry sailors reputed to have thought them 'sheep's droppings'.

An Italian traveller, Francesco Carletti, was the first to break the Spanish monopoly. He had visited Central America and seen how the Indians prepared the cocoa beans and how they made the drink, and by 1606 chocolate was well established in Italy.

The secret of chocolate was taken to France in 1615, when Anne, daughter of Philip II of Spain, married King Louis XIII of France. The French court enthusiastically adopted this new exotic drink, which was considered to have medicinal benefits as well as being a nourishing food.

The supply of cocoa beans to the French market greatly increased after 1684, when France conquered Cuba and Haiti and set up its own cocoa plantations there.

In the 17th century, the Dutch, who were great navigators, broke Spain's monopoly of cocoa when they captured Curacao. They not only brought cocoa beans from America to Holland, where cocoa was greatly acclaimed and recommended by doctors as a cure for almost every ailment, but also enabled the trade in cocoa beans to spread.

Chocolate probably reached Germany in 1646, brought back by visitors to Italy. The secret of the aromatic chocolate-flavoured drinks finally reached England from France in the 1650s when they became very popular at the court of King Charles II.

Up until this point all chocolate recipes were based on plain chocolate. It was an English doctor, Sir Hans Sloane, who - after travelling in South America - focused on cacao and food values, bringing a milk chocolate recipe back to England. The original Cadbury Milk Chocolate was prepared to his recipe.

Chocolate Houses

When chocolate finally reached England in the 1650s, the high import duties on cocoa beans meant it was a drink only for the wealthy. Chocolate cost the equivalent of 50-75 pence a pound (approximately 400g), when pound sterling was worth considerably more than it is today. Gradually chocolate became more freely available. In 1657, London's first Chocolate House was opened by a Frenchman, who produced the first advertisement for the chocolate drink to be seen in London:

"In Bishopgate St, in Queen's Head Alley, at a Frenchman's house, is an excellent West Indian drink called Chocolate to be sold, where you may have it ready at any time and also unmade at reasonable rates."

Fashionable chocolate houses were soon opened where the people could meet friends and enjoy various rich chocolate drinks, many of which were rather bitter to taste, while discussing the serious political, social and business affairs of the day or gossiping.

Samuel Pepys, the famous diarist, wrote of his visits to chocolate houses:

"Went to Mr Bland's and there drank my morning draft of chocolate."

The most famous one was White's Chocolate House in the fashionable St James Street, opened in 1693 by Frances White, an Italian immigrant.

The chocolate drinks, served along with ale, beer, snacks and coffee, would have been made from blocks of solid cocoa, probably imported from Spain, and a pressed cake from which the drink could be made at home was also sold. Around 1700 the English improved the drink by adding milk.

By the end of the 18th century London's chocolate houses began to disappear, many of the more fashionable ones becoming smart gentlemen's clubs. White's Chocolate House is to this day an exclusive gentlemen's club in St James', London.

Drinking Chocolate

Early cocoa and drinking chocolates were balanced with potato starch and sago flour to counter the high cocoa butter content. Other ingredients were added to give healthy properties.

The Cadbury family were closely involved in the evolution of drinking chocolate. From his grocery shop in Birmingham, where he sold mainly tea and coffee, John Cadbury started preparing cocoa and drinking chocolate, using cocoa beans imported from South and Central America and the West Indies. He experimented with a mortar and pestle to produce a range of cocoa and drinking chocolates with added sugar.

By 1831 the cocoa and drinking chocolate side of the business had expanded, so he rented a small factory in Crooked Lane not far from his shop and became a 'manufacturer of drinking chocolate and cocoa'. This was the real foundation of the Cadbury manufacturing business as it is today. The earliest preserved price list of 1842 shows that John Cadbury sold sixteen lines of drinking chocolate and cocoa in cake and powder forms. Customers would scrape a little off the block and mix it with hot milk or water. A solid chocolate for eating was introduced by John Cadbury in 1849, which by today's standards wouldn't be considered very palatable.

In 1866 George Cadbury (John 's son) brought to England a press developed in Holland by Van Houten. The press changed the face of cocoa and chocolate production, as it was designed to remove some of the cocoa butter, enabling a less rich and more palatable drink to be produced. There was no longer any need to add the various types of flour and Cadbury's new cocoa essence was advertised as 'Absolutely pure...therefore Best'.

The consequent availability of cocoa butter led to the development of the smooth creamy chocolate we know today.

First Chocolate For Eating

The inventor of 'chocolate for eating' is unknown, but in 1847, Fry & Sons of Bristol, which merged with Cadbury Limited in 1919, sold a 'chocolate delicieux a manger'. Many people credit this as the very first chocolate bar for eating. John Cadbury added a similar product to his range in 1849, and by today's standards these original chocolate bars would not be considered very palatable.

The introduction from Holland of the van Houten cocoa press to the Cadbury Brothers Bridge Street factory in 1866 was the real breakthrough, not only for the Cadbury business, but also for the development of eating chocolate.

Cocoa butter, extracted from the cocoa beans, is the essential ingredient for eating chocolate. The Cadbury Brothers developed a new eating chocolate recipe, which produced chocolate quite similar to that which we now enjoy.

At that time only plain dark chocolate could be made: this refined chocolate was used for moulding into blocks and bars or for covering fruit-flavoured centres, to make the first chocolate assortments.

In 1875, a Swiss manufacturer, Daniel Peters of Vevey, produced the first milk chocolate bar using powdered milk. The idea of combining chocolate and milk wasn't entirely new, as the Cadbury Brothers had sold a milk chocolate drink between 1849 and 1875 from the original recipe by Sir Hans Sloane.

Milk chocolate bars were made by Cadbury Brothers in 1897. It was a very coarse, dry eating chocolate, made by blending milk powder with the basic chocolate ingredients of cocoa butter, cocoa mass and sugar.

By this time Daniel Peters had perfected his recipe and was now using condensed milk rather than powdered milk to produce a chocolate with a superior taste and texture. Swiss milk chocolate dominated the British market - a situation the Cadbury family set out to challenge.

The Cocoa Tree

Cocoa trees resemble English apple trees, seldom reaching more than 7.5 metres (25 feet) high. They are carefully pruned so that pods can be more easily harvested.

To flourish they need to be shaded from direct sun and wind, particularly in the early stages of
growth. Two methods are used to establish cocoa trees:

Young trees are interspersed with new permanent or temporary shade trees such as coconut, plantains and bananas, following the clear felling of the forest. In Asia, where large plantations have been developed, cocoa trees and coconut trees are planted together and both crops are harvested commercially.

Alternatively forests are thinned out and the cocoa trees are planted between established trees.

Cocoa trees begin to bear fruit when they are 3-4 years old. Unusually, pink and white flowers and then pods grow straight out of the trunk and main branches. Like most tropical plants, flowers are present throughout the year but appear in abundance before the rain starts. Only a small proportion of all the flowers develop into fruit over a period of about five months.

Each tree will yield 20-30 pods per year and in West Africa the peak time for harvesting is between September and December.

The pods are hard and melon shaped, between 15-20cm long: each weighing about 450g each. When the pods are ripe they change from green to yellow, red or orange. Each pod contains 20-40 seeds, which when dried are the cocoa beans of commerce.

It takes the whole year's crop from one tree to make 450gms of chocolate.

Cocoa Growing Countries

Although a native of the Amazon basin and other tropical areas of South and Central America, where wild varieties still grow in the forests, the cocoa growing area has extended to the Caribbean and beyond. Different types of cocoa are selected for cultivation in the various growing areas.

Because the trees grow well in humid tropical climates with regular rains and a short dry season,
most of the world's cocoa is grown in a narrow belt 10 degrees either side of the Equator. Even
temperatures of between 21 and 23 degrees centigrade; a fairly constant rainfall of 1,000 to 2,500 mm per year; and an absence of hot dry winds and drought create the perfect conditions for growing cocoa.

Many countries now grow cocoa but the main producers are:

West Africa - Ghana (which grows some of the best quality cocoa in the world), Nigeria and Cote D'Ivoire
South America - Brazil and Equador
Asia - Malaysia and Indonesia, where cocoa is a relatively new crop, are becoming
increasingly important growing areas.

Cocoa was first planted in Ghana (now a major producer), in 1879. As in the rest of West Africa,
cocoa is grown almost entirely on smallholdings, where the whole family works together. Cocoa farming is a small, unsophisticated business, as the planting patterns of cocoa trees make mechanisation impractical.

In the Far East, public and private plantations have been developed as well as small farms.

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