Dublin Temple Bar Chocolate Festival (UK & Ireland)
An annual festival that immerses chocoholics in a world of chocolate discovery, including tasting workshops, talks on the history of chocolate, chocolate themed films and poetry readings. There is also a Chocolate Carnival Food Market.
NATIONAL FESTIVAL
Óbidos International Chocolate Festival (Portugal)
A two week festival held in the tiny village of Óbidos, just north of Lisbon, this festival has been going for 6 years and features chocolate sculptures, fashion, recipe contests and plenty of opportunities to taste chocolate.
Fairchild Tropical Botanic Garden Chocolate Festival (Miami USA)
An annual event held at the Fairchild Tropical Botanic Gardens that celebrates the Theobroma cacao, the plant that chocolate comes from. The event runs over two days and includes talks and lectures on how chocolate is made, cooking demonstrations and workshops, chocolate art and sculpture exhibitions, chocolate based spa and massage treatments and children’s activities. The event usually takes place in January or February.
Monday, November 14, 2011
Chocolate Quotes by Cadbury
This guy found a bottle on the ocean, and he opened it and out popped a genie, and he gave him three wishes. The guy wished for a million dollars, and poof! there was a million dollars. Then he wished for a convertible, and poof! there was a convertible. And then, he wished he could be irresistible to all women… poof! he turned into a box of chocolates.
I could give up chocolate but I’m not a quitter.
I have this theory that chocolate slows down the aging process…. It may not be true, but do I dare take the chance?
Forget love — I’d rather fall in chocolate!!!
It's not that chocolates are a substitute for love. Love is a substitute for chocolate. Chocolate is, let's face it, far more reliable than a man Miranda Ingram
There's nothing better than a good friend, except a good friend with CHOCOLATE Linda Grayson
Strength is the capacity to break a chocolate bar into four pieces with your bare hands and then eat just one of the pieces Judith Viorst
There are four basic food groups, milk chocolate, dark chocolate,
white chocolate and chocolate truffles
Chocolate is a perfect food, as wholesome as it is delicious, a beneficent restorer of exhausted power...it is the best friend of those engaged in literary pursuits.
Baron Justus von Liebig, German chemist (1803-1873)
Twill make Old Women Young and Fresh; Create New Motions of the Flesh. And cause them long for you know what, If they but taste of chocolate. from “A History of the Nature and Quality of Chocolate”, James Wadworth (1768-1844)
The divine drink, which builds up resistance and fights fatigue. A cup of this precious drink (cocoa) permits a man to walk for a whole day without food. Montezuma - Aztec Emperor (c. 1480-1520)
‘If you are not feeling well, if you have not slept, chocolate will revive you. But you have no chocolate! I think of that again and again! My dear, how will you ever manage?’
Marquise de Sévigné (17th Century French writer)
‘Biochemically, love is just like eating large amounts of chocolate.’ John Milton
‘Exercise is a dirty word. Every time I hear it I wash my mouth out with chocolate.” Charles M Schultz
‘Once in a while I say, ‘go for it’ and I eat chocolate.’
Claudia Schiffer
‘Stress wouldn’t be so hard to take if it were chocolate covered.’
‘Chocolate is cheaper than therapy and you don’t need an appointment.’
‘Chocolate is nature’s way of making up for Mondays.’
‘There’s more to life than chocolate but not right now.’
‘Life without chocolate is life lacking something important.” Writers Marcia Colman Morton and Frederic Morton
‘My therapist told me the way to achieve true inner peace is to finish what I start. So far I’ve finished two bags of M&Ms and a chocolate cake. I feel better already.’ Dave Barry
I could give up chocolate but I’m not a quitter.
I have this theory that chocolate slows down the aging process…. It may not be true, but do I dare take the chance?
Forget love — I’d rather fall in chocolate!!!
It's not that chocolates are a substitute for love. Love is a substitute for chocolate. Chocolate is, let's face it, far more reliable than a man Miranda Ingram
There's nothing better than a good friend, except a good friend with CHOCOLATE Linda Grayson
Strength is the capacity to break a chocolate bar into four pieces with your bare hands and then eat just one of the pieces Judith Viorst
There are four basic food groups, milk chocolate, dark chocolate,
white chocolate and chocolate truffles
Chocolate is a perfect food, as wholesome as it is delicious, a beneficent restorer of exhausted power...it is the best friend of those engaged in literary pursuits.
Baron Justus von Liebig, German chemist (1803-1873)
Twill make Old Women Young and Fresh; Create New Motions of the Flesh. And cause them long for you know what, If they but taste of chocolate. from “A History of the Nature and Quality of Chocolate”, James Wadworth (1768-1844)
The divine drink, which builds up resistance and fights fatigue. A cup of this precious drink (cocoa) permits a man to walk for a whole day without food. Montezuma - Aztec Emperor (c. 1480-1520)
‘If you are not feeling well, if you have not slept, chocolate will revive you. But you have no chocolate! I think of that again and again! My dear, how will you ever manage?’
Marquise de Sévigné (17th Century French writer)
‘Biochemically, love is just like eating large amounts of chocolate.’ John Milton
‘Exercise is a dirty word. Every time I hear it I wash my mouth out with chocolate.” Charles M Schultz
‘Once in a while I say, ‘go for it’ and I eat chocolate.’
Claudia Schiffer
‘Stress wouldn’t be so hard to take if it were chocolate covered.’
‘Chocolate is cheaper than therapy and you don’t need an appointment.’
‘Chocolate is nature’s way of making up for Mondays.’
‘There’s more to life than chocolate but not right now.’
‘Life without chocolate is life lacking something important.” Writers Marcia Colman Morton and Frederic Morton
‘My therapist told me the way to achieve true inner peace is to finish what I start. So far I’ve finished two bags of M&Ms and a chocolate cake. I feel better already.’ Dave Barry
Cadbury Milk Chocolate
The cocoa mass is sent to the Cadbury milk factory near Hereford. Here it is mixed with sugar and fresh full cream milk, which has already been condensed into a thick liquid. The mixture is dried in vacuum ovens to become milk chocolate ‘crumb’.
The milk chocolate crumb is taken to Cadbury chocolate factories and finely ground between enormous rollers before extra cocoa butter and special flavourings are added.
The amount of cocoa butter added depends on what the chocolate is for – bar chocolate needs to be thick, but if it’s to cover assortments and bars with different centres, thinner chocolate is used. In the UK up to 5% vegetable fat is added too – this stabilises the chocolate and gives the ideal texture to ensure that the melting properties of the chocolate are precise and preserve the taste and ideal texture of the chocolate.
Next, milk chocolate needs to be conched (rolled and kneaded so that it becomes silky smooth), and tempered (cooled to a particular temperature to make it more stable) – just like for dark chocolate.
Now the chocolate’s ready for its final destination – maybe it’ll be poured over a Crunchie, become a Cadbury Creme Egg, or end up as a lovely bar of Dairy Milk – find out what might happen to it on the next page.
Moulded chocolate, countlines and enrobing
So once we’ve made dark chocolate and milk chocolate, what happens to it? That depends on what we’re making.
Bars of chocolate, like Cadbury Dairy Milk, are called ‘moulded’ products – because chocolate is poured into a mould to make them. Liquid chocolate is poured in, it’s shaken (to make sure it fits the mould perfectly), and then cooled, before being wrapped at high speed.
‘Countline’ products are things like Crunchie and Double Decker, with a chocolate covering around a different centre. The centres of the bars are laid out on a conveyer belt, and they pass under an ‘enrobing’ machine, which covers each bar in a layer of liquid chocolate. Chocolate assortments like Milk Tray are made the same way.
As for Cadbury Creme Eggs, they’re made by a special process. They’re moulded in two halves, the fondant centre is dropped into one half, and then the two are put together very swiftly when the chocolate’s still soft so they stick together.
The milk chocolate crumb is taken to Cadbury chocolate factories and finely ground between enormous rollers before extra cocoa butter and special flavourings are added.
The amount of cocoa butter added depends on what the chocolate is for – bar chocolate needs to be thick, but if it’s to cover assortments and bars with different centres, thinner chocolate is used. In the UK up to 5% vegetable fat is added too – this stabilises the chocolate and gives the ideal texture to ensure that the melting properties of the chocolate are precise and preserve the taste and ideal texture of the chocolate.
Next, milk chocolate needs to be conched (rolled and kneaded so that it becomes silky smooth), and tempered (cooled to a particular temperature to make it more stable) – just like for dark chocolate.
Now the chocolate’s ready for its final destination – maybe it’ll be poured over a Crunchie, become a Cadbury Creme Egg, or end up as a lovely bar of Dairy Milk – find out what might happen to it on the next page.
Moulded chocolate, countlines and enrobing
So once we’ve made dark chocolate and milk chocolate, what happens to it? That depends on what we’re making.
Bars of chocolate, like Cadbury Dairy Milk, are called ‘moulded’ products – because chocolate is poured into a mould to make them. Liquid chocolate is poured in, it’s shaken (to make sure it fits the mould perfectly), and then cooled, before being wrapped at high speed.
‘Countline’ products are things like Crunchie and Double Decker, with a chocolate covering around a different centre. The centres of the bars are laid out on a conveyer belt, and they pass under an ‘enrobing’ machine, which covers each bar in a layer of liquid chocolate. Chocolate assortments like Milk Tray are made the same way.
As for Cadbury Creme Eggs, they’re made by a special process. They’re moulded in two halves, the fondant centre is dropped into one half, and then the two are put together very swiftly when the chocolate’s still soft so they stick together.
Cadbury Dark Chocolate
To make dark chocolate, cocoa mass is sent from Chirk to Cadbury’s chocolate making factories.
It’s mixed with extra cocoa butter and sugar, then ground and ‘conched’. Conching is a crucial process: it means the chocolate is rolled and kneaded, transforming itself from a gritty substance to a very smooth one.
Chocolate also needs to be ‘tempered’. This involves cooling it to a particular temperature, to make it stable. It means you get a nice glossy finish, and you don’t get the problem of cocoa butter rising to the surface – which is harmless, but spoils the look of the chocolate.
Now the dark chocolate is ready to use and can be poured into moulds or over chocolate centres. The finished chocolate bars or individual chocolates sail on down the production line to be wrapped and packed into boxes ready for distribution.
It’s mixed with extra cocoa butter and sugar, then ground and ‘conched’. Conching is a crucial process: it means the chocolate is rolled and kneaded, transforming itself from a gritty substance to a very smooth one.
Chocolate also needs to be ‘tempered’. This involves cooling it to a particular temperature, to make it stable. It means you get a nice glossy finish, and you don’t get the problem of cocoa butter rising to the surface – which is harmless, but spoils the look of the chocolate.
Now the dark chocolate is ready to use and can be poured into moulds or over chocolate centres. The finished chocolate bars or individual chocolates sail on down the production line to be wrapped and packed into boxes ready for distribution.
How Chocolate is Made
THE COCOA TREE
Cocoa beans come from cocoa pods that grow on cocoa trees – simple! The cocoa tree, (real name Theobroma Cacao), grows in warm, humid places near the Equator.
There’s got to be guaranteed rainfall and fertile soil for it to thrive, and Ghana, the Ivory Coast, Brazil, and Nigeria are all perfect – production’s increasing in Malaysia too.
A cocoa tree looks a bit like an apple tree but has broader, rich green leaves. It flowers and fruits all year round, and produces large cocoa pods that sprout from tree trunks and main branches. There’s not that many of them though – each tree only has 20-30 pods a year. Take a look inside the pods and you’d see 30-40 seeds sitting in a sweet white pulp rather like cotton wool – these are the cocoa beans. And no wonder cocoa is precious; it takes a whole year’s crop from one tree to make 454 grammes (1lb) of cocoa.
Different trees, different cocoa
There are three main types of cocoa: Forastero, Criollo and Trinitario – this last one is a cross between the first two.
Forastero is widely grown – it’s a hardy tree producing the strongest flavour beans. And within Forastero, a variety called Amelonado is most popular, largely grown in West Africa and Brazil.
Criollo trees aren’t as tough as Forastero. Its beans have a milder chocolate flavour and a unique aroma. They’re grown in Central and South American and Indonesia.
Trinitario isn’t found in the wild, but is grown in the Caribbean as well as in Cameroon and Papua New Guinea.
Cadbury get their cocoa from Ghana in West Africa, where the main harvesting period is October to December. When they’re ripe, the cocoa pods turn a rich golden colour. They’re cut down from the trees and split open, and the pulp and beans are removed from the outside husk.
To get a good chocolate flavour, the beans then have to be fermented. There are two main methods: Heap and Box. In West Africa the Heap method is used. The cocoa beans are piled up on a layer of banana tree leaves, with more leaves on top to cover them. Then they’re left for five or six days to ferment – this when much of the chocolate flavour develops. The pulp around the beans becomes liquid and drains away.
Next the wet beans are dried in the sun and turned frequently so they dry evenly – this is crucial because if any beans are still wet, they’ll go mouldy when they’re stored. Once the farmers are happy that the beans are dry, they’re taken to buying stations, where the beans are weighed and packed into sacks.
The Box method is used in the West Indies, Latin America and in Malaysia, and you tend to find it in large plantations. Over a tonne of beans is put in to a wooden box which has gaps in the base for air to get in and liquid to drain out. The boxes are covered in banana leaves and stored in a building for 6-8 days. They’re mixed a couple of times during this process, and then special equipment is used to dry them.
PROCESSING THE BEANS
Once Cadbury have bought their cocoa beans, they arrive in the United Kingdom and are transported to one of the world’s most modern processing factories, at Chirk in North Wales.
Cocoa beans come from cocoa pods that grow on cocoa trees – simple! The cocoa tree, (real name Theobroma Cacao), grows in warm, humid places near the Equator.
There’s got to be guaranteed rainfall and fertile soil for it to thrive, and Ghana, the Ivory Coast, Brazil, and Nigeria are all perfect – production’s increasing in Malaysia too.
A cocoa tree looks a bit like an apple tree but has broader, rich green leaves. It flowers and fruits all year round, and produces large cocoa pods that sprout from tree trunks and main branches. There’s not that many of them though – each tree only has 20-30 pods a year. Take a look inside the pods and you’d see 30-40 seeds sitting in a sweet white pulp rather like cotton wool – these are the cocoa beans. And no wonder cocoa is precious; it takes a whole year’s crop from one tree to make 454 grammes (1lb) of cocoa.
Different trees, different cocoa
There are three main types of cocoa: Forastero, Criollo and Trinitario – this last one is a cross between the first two.
Forastero is widely grown – it’s a hardy tree producing the strongest flavour beans. And within Forastero, a variety called Amelonado is most popular, largely grown in West Africa and Brazil.
Criollo trees aren’t as tough as Forastero. Its beans have a milder chocolate flavour and a unique aroma. They’re grown in Central and South American and Indonesia.
Trinitario isn’t found in the wild, but is grown in the Caribbean as well as in Cameroon and Papua New Guinea.
Cadbury get their cocoa from Ghana in West Africa, where the main harvesting period is October to December. When they’re ripe, the cocoa pods turn a rich golden colour. They’re cut down from the trees and split open, and the pulp and beans are removed from the outside husk.
To get a good chocolate flavour, the beans then have to be fermented. There are two main methods: Heap and Box. In West Africa the Heap method is used. The cocoa beans are piled up on a layer of banana tree leaves, with more leaves on top to cover them. Then they’re left for five or six days to ferment – this when much of the chocolate flavour develops. The pulp around the beans becomes liquid and drains away.
Next the wet beans are dried in the sun and turned frequently so they dry evenly – this is crucial because if any beans are still wet, they’ll go mouldy when they’re stored. Once the farmers are happy that the beans are dry, they’re taken to buying stations, where the beans are weighed and packed into sacks.
The Box method is used in the West Indies, Latin America and in Malaysia, and you tend to find it in large plantations. Over a tonne of beans is put in to a wooden box which has gaps in the base for air to get in and liquid to drain out. The boxes are covered in banana leaves and stored in a building for 6-8 days. They’re mixed a couple of times during this process, and then special equipment is used to dry them.
PROCESSING THE BEANS
Once Cadbury have bought their cocoa beans, they arrive in the United Kingdom and are transported to one of the world’s most modern processing factories, at Chirk in North Wales.
The sacks of beans are emptied out on to a conveyor belt and before anything else happens they’re cleaned to get rid of any dust and stones they’ve picked up along the way. Next the beans roasted in a big revolving drum called a continuous roaster. Hot air goes into it as the beans pass along it, and it’s during this process that you’ll really begin to smell chocolate!
The roasted beans are ‘kibbled’ (broken in to small pieces), then ‘winnowed’ – the brittle shells are blown away, leaving just the ‘nibs’, the centres of the beans. The nibs are ground between steel rollers until they become a chocolate-coloured liquid, rather like thick cream, over half of which is cocoa butter. The liquid is called ‘mass’ or ‘cocoa liquor’ and this is the basic ingredient for all cocoa and chocolate products.
Mass contains ‘cocoa butter’ and about half of is pressed out. You’re left with a solid block that can then be ground into cocoa powder.
History Of Chocolate Bars
Chocolate bars? Hmm, when I listen that words, I immediately feel hungry. Now, I'll tell you about History of Chocolate Bars by Cadbury.
Who was the very first person to make ‘eating chocolate’?
18th century France produced pastilles (tablets) and bars, but it wasn’t until Bristol company Fry & Son made a ‘chocolate delicieux a manger’ in 1847 that the first bar of chocolate as we know it today appeared.
It was a mixture of cocoa powder and sugar with a little of the melted cocoa butter that had been extracted from the beans. The result was a bar that could be moulded. It might have been coarse and bitter by today’s standards, but it was still a revolution.
Moulded into blocks and bars, and poured over fruit-flavoured centres, this plain chocolate was a real breakthrough. But there was more to follow.
In 1875, a Swiss manufacturer called Daniel Peter added powdered milk to make the first milk chocolate bar.
It wasn’t a completely new idea – Cadbury produced their milk chocolate drink based on Sir Hans Sloane’s recipe between 1849 and 1875. And Cadbury added their own milk chocolate bars in 1897.
Cadbury Milk Chocolate in 1897 was a very coarse, dry eating chocolate, made by blending milk powder with cocoa, cocoa butter and sugar
But Daniel Peter was still way ahead of them – using condensed milk rather than powdered milk to produce a chocolate with a superior taste and texture. Another Swiss manufacturer had invented the conching machine in 1879. This refined chocolate, giving it the smooth texture we know today.
Swiss milk chocolate dominated the British market – a situation the Cadbury family set out to challenge in the 20th Century.
Who was the very first person to make ‘eating chocolate’?
18th century France produced pastilles (tablets) and bars, but it wasn’t until Bristol company Fry & Son made a ‘chocolate delicieux a manger’ in 1847 that the first bar of chocolate as we know it today appeared.
It was a mixture of cocoa powder and sugar with a little of the melted cocoa butter that had been extracted from the beans. The result was a bar that could be moulded. It might have been coarse and bitter by today’s standards, but it was still a revolution.
Moulded into blocks and bars, and poured over fruit-flavoured centres, this plain chocolate was a real breakthrough. But there was more to follow.
In 1875, a Swiss manufacturer called Daniel Peter added powdered milk to make the first milk chocolate bar.
It wasn’t a completely new idea – Cadbury produced their milk chocolate drink based on Sir Hans Sloane’s recipe between 1849 and 1875. And Cadbury added their own milk chocolate bars in 1897.
Cadbury Milk Chocolate in 1897 was a very coarse, dry eating chocolate, made by blending milk powder with cocoa, cocoa butter and sugar
But Daniel Peter was still way ahead of them – using condensed milk rather than powdered milk to produce a chocolate with a superior taste and texture. Another Swiss manufacturer had invented the conching machine in 1879. This refined chocolate, giving it the smooth texture we know today.
Swiss milk chocolate dominated the British market – a situation the Cadbury family set out to challenge in the 20th Century.
History Of Chocolate
Cocoa and Maya Civilisation
Well it does! Cocoa trees grew wild in the Amazon and tropical rain forests of Central and South America for thousands of years – way before it ever reached us in Europe.
Cocoa beans were prized by the Maya Indians as far back as 600 AD. They roasted the beans, and added chilli and other spices to make a drink called ‘xocoatl’. It wasn’t much like our drinking chocolate though.
The Mayan drink ‘Xocoatl’ means “Bitter Water.”
Mayan Indians lived in what’s now Southern Mexico, the tropical Yucatan Peninsula. At first they harvested cocoa beans from wild trees in the rainforest. Then they started growing their own trees by clearing bits of the forest – which shows how important cocoa was to them.
They didn’t only drink the cocoa, they used it as currency too. Here’s an idea of what it was worth:
4 cocoa beans could buy a pumpkin
10 could buy a rabbit
100 could buy a slave
And merchants used cocoa beans to trade for cloth, jade and ceremonial feathers. Just think, if someone hadn’t invented coins and notes, you could have been going to the shops with a pocketful of cocoa beans instead!
Like money and jewellery these days, cocoa beans were valuable and were given as gifts at religious ceremonies and other important occasions.
‘Cocoa fruits were used at festivals for Ek Chuah, the merchant god’.
So how did these ancient people get their cocoa beans from one place to another? With no horses, pack animals or wheeled carts in Central America, instead farmers would travel along the rivers by canoe, or strap big baskets to their backs. Wealthy merchants would employ porters, and could travel further with their cocoa beans – as far as the Aztec kingdom.
The Aztec Empire
The Aztecs loved their ‘Chocolate’, a luxury drink described as ‘ finely ground, soft, foamy, reddish, bitter with chilli water, aromatic flowers, vanilla and wild bee honey’. Mmmm…
But who were they? The Aztecs were nomads who founded the great city of Tenochtitlan in 1325. Creating a powerful and wealthy empire they conquered the whole of Mexico, but it was too dry to grow cocoa trees in Tenochtitlan, so the Aztecs had to get their cocoa beans from taxes (called ‘Tributes’), or by trade.
‘Tributes’ were given by provinces that the Aztecs had defeated in war
Many gods were worshipped by the Aztecs, and cocoa beans were linked to one in particular, a scary-sounding feathered serpent god of agriculture and creation called Quetzalcoatl. They built enormous temples to him and his biggest fan was their ruler, Moctezuma, Emperor of Mexico. The Aztecs were always convinced they were on the brink of terrible catastrophe, so they made human sacrifices to try and make the gods happy. Plenty of people must have died this way, but at least they got to drink chocolate first!
An old Mexican Indian myth tells of how Quetzalcoatl was forced to leave the country, but left behind the cocoa tree, that he had brought as a gift from the gods. Apparently when the Spanish conquistador (or explorer) Hernan Cortés, arrived in the country in 1517, they may have thought he was Quetzalcoatl come back to visit them.
Hernan
Hernan Cortés was a Spanish conquistador sent on an expedition to colonise Mexico in 1517. With 11 ships and 600 men, he landed on the Mexican coast and travelled to Tenochtitlan to meet Moctezuma, ruler of the rich and prosperous Aztecs.
Cortés hadn’t exactly come in peace – but Moctezuma welcomed him anyway, possibly because he thought it was best to get to know the Spanish in order to defeat them later.
Moctezuma gave Cortés ‘chocolatl’, his favourite drink, served in a golden goblet. Apparently Moctezuma used to drink it before going to his harem, and ever since then chocolate has had an (unfounded) reputation of being an aphrodisiac.
"The divine drink, which builds up resistance and fights fatigue."--Cortés in a letter to Charles V of Spain.
Poor old Moctezuma was put in prison by Cortés. He became ruler again briefly under Spain, but was then killed by disgruntled Aztecs in 1520, and by July of that year the Aztecs had forced the Spanish out of Tenochtitlan. The Spanish retaliated, holding the city in siege for 75 days until it fell, marking the end of Aztec civilisation.
Cortés was made Captain General and Governor of Mexico. And he never forgot about chocolate – when he returned to Spain in 1528 he loaded his galleons with cocoa beans and equipment for making the drink. Soon 'chocolate' was all the rage amongst the Spanish elite. They kept quiet about it though! It took nearly a century for news of cocoa and chocolate to spread across Europe.
Chocolate Spreads Across Europe
The conquistador Hernan Cortés was the first European to realise cocoa beans were valuable – but someone had brought them back before him. Christopher Columbus stole some from a Mayan trader and brought them over between 1502-1504. He knew they were worth something, but didn’t understand what they were or what to do with them.
Cortés knew better, and brought them to Spain in 1528. Because cocoa beans were in short supply, chocolate was top secret in Spain for 100 years and the only people allowed to process cocoa beans were monks. They added cinnamon, nutmeg and sugar – leaving out the chilli that the Aztecs liked – and realised it was nicer served warm.
The rest of Europe was still in the dark. English and Dutch sailors had found cocoa beans in captured Spanish ‘treasure’ ships coming back from the New World, but they didn’t know what they were and threw them overboard, angry that they’d wasted their time. Some of them thought they were sheep’s droppings!
"A widely celebrated fruit of great importance." --Francesco Carletti
But eventually word got out. An Italian traveller, Francesco Carletti, visited Central America and saw the drink being made and by 1606 chocolate was in Italy. It reached France in 1615 when Anne, daughter of Philip II of Spain, married King Louis XIII of France.
The French Court loved the new drink of chocolate, believing it was exotic, nourishing and good for your health. Cocoa plantations were set up in Cuba and Haiti in 1684, so in France it became much easier to get your hands on the sought-after cocoa beans.
Next it was the turn of the Dutch, who captured Curacao, an island off Venezuela, in 1634 and brought cocoa beans back to Holland. Chocolate probably reached Germany in 1646, brought back by visitors to Italy. And then finally it reached England in the 1650s…
Chocolate Arrives at England
Chocolate arrived in England in the 1650s and the aromatic drink became hugely popular in King Charles II’s court. But you’d have to be rich to drink it – high import duties on cocoa beans meant that it was expensive.
Gradually it started to become more widely available. In 1657 London’s very first Chocolate House was advertised: ‘In Bishopsgate Street, 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.’
"Went to Mr Bland's and there drank my morning draft in good Chocolatte."--The Diary of Samuel Pepys, 3 May 1664
Soon there were many chocolate houses in London, and like the cafés and coffee shops of today, people went to meet their friends and chat (or gossip) about the issues of the day over a cup of chocolate.
Well it does! Cocoa trees grew wild in the Amazon and tropical rain forests of Central and South America for thousands of years – way before it ever reached us in Europe.
Cocoa beans were prized by the Maya Indians as far back as 600 AD. They roasted the beans, and added chilli and other spices to make a drink called ‘xocoatl’. It wasn’t much like our drinking chocolate though.
The Mayan drink ‘Xocoatl’ means “Bitter Water.”
Mayan Indians lived in what’s now Southern Mexico, the tropical Yucatan Peninsula. At first they harvested cocoa beans from wild trees in the rainforest. Then they started growing their own trees by clearing bits of the forest – which shows how important cocoa was to them.
They didn’t only drink the cocoa, they used it as currency too. Here’s an idea of what it was worth:
4 cocoa beans could buy a pumpkin
10 could buy a rabbit
100 could buy a slave
And merchants used cocoa beans to trade for cloth, jade and ceremonial feathers. Just think, if someone hadn’t invented coins and notes, you could have been going to the shops with a pocketful of cocoa beans instead!
Like money and jewellery these days, cocoa beans were valuable and were given as gifts at religious ceremonies and other important occasions.
‘Cocoa fruits were used at festivals for Ek Chuah, the merchant god’.
So how did these ancient people get their cocoa beans from one place to another? With no horses, pack animals or wheeled carts in Central America, instead farmers would travel along the rivers by canoe, or strap big baskets to their backs. Wealthy merchants would employ porters, and could travel further with their cocoa beans – as far as the Aztec kingdom.
The Aztec Empire
The Aztecs loved their ‘Chocolate’, a luxury drink described as ‘ finely ground, soft, foamy, reddish, bitter with chilli water, aromatic flowers, vanilla and wild bee honey’. Mmmm…
But who were they? The Aztecs were nomads who founded the great city of Tenochtitlan in 1325. Creating a powerful and wealthy empire they conquered the whole of Mexico, but it was too dry to grow cocoa trees in Tenochtitlan, so the Aztecs had to get their cocoa beans from taxes (called ‘Tributes’), or by trade.
‘Tributes’ were given by provinces that the Aztecs had defeated in war
Many gods were worshipped by the Aztecs, and cocoa beans were linked to one in particular, a scary-sounding feathered serpent god of agriculture and creation called Quetzalcoatl. They built enormous temples to him and his biggest fan was their ruler, Moctezuma, Emperor of Mexico. The Aztecs were always convinced they were on the brink of terrible catastrophe, so they made human sacrifices to try and make the gods happy. Plenty of people must have died this way, but at least they got to drink chocolate first!
An old Mexican Indian myth tells of how Quetzalcoatl was forced to leave the country, but left behind the cocoa tree, that he had brought as a gift from the gods. Apparently when the Spanish conquistador (or explorer) Hernan Cortés, arrived in the country in 1517, they may have thought he was Quetzalcoatl come back to visit them.
Hernan
Cortés
Hernan Cortés was a Spanish conquistador sent on an expedition to colonise Mexico in 1517. With 11 ships and 600 men, he landed on the Mexican coast and travelled to Tenochtitlan to meet Moctezuma, ruler of the rich and prosperous Aztecs.
Cortés hadn’t exactly come in peace – but Moctezuma welcomed him anyway, possibly because he thought it was best to get to know the Spanish in order to defeat them later.
Moctezuma gave Cortés ‘chocolatl’, his favourite drink, served in a golden goblet. Apparently Moctezuma used to drink it before going to his harem, and ever since then chocolate has had an (unfounded) reputation of being an aphrodisiac.
"The divine drink, which builds up resistance and fights fatigue."--Cortés in a letter to Charles V of Spain.
Poor old Moctezuma was put in prison by Cortés. He became ruler again briefly under Spain, but was then killed by disgruntled Aztecs in 1520, and by July of that year the Aztecs had forced the Spanish out of Tenochtitlan. The Spanish retaliated, holding the city in siege for 75 days until it fell, marking the end of Aztec civilisation.
Cortés was made Captain General and Governor of Mexico. And he never forgot about chocolate – when he returned to Spain in 1528 he loaded his galleons with cocoa beans and equipment for making the drink. Soon 'chocolate' was all the rage amongst the Spanish elite. They kept quiet about it though! It took nearly a century for news of cocoa and chocolate to spread across Europe.
Chocolate Spreads Across Europe
The conquistador Hernan Cortés was the first European to realise cocoa beans were valuable – but someone had brought them back before him. Christopher Columbus stole some from a Mayan trader and brought them over between 1502-1504. He knew they were worth something, but didn’t understand what they were or what to do with them.
Cortés knew better, and brought them to Spain in 1528. Because cocoa beans were in short supply, chocolate was top secret in Spain for 100 years and the only people allowed to process cocoa beans were monks. They added cinnamon, nutmeg and sugar – leaving out the chilli that the Aztecs liked – and realised it was nicer served warm.
The rest of Europe was still in the dark. English and Dutch sailors had found cocoa beans in captured Spanish ‘treasure’ ships coming back from the New World, but they didn’t know what they were and threw them overboard, angry that they’d wasted their time. Some of them thought they were sheep’s droppings!
"A widely celebrated fruit of great importance." --Francesco Carletti
But eventually word got out. An Italian traveller, Francesco Carletti, visited Central America and saw the drink being made and by 1606 chocolate was in Italy. It reached France in 1615 when Anne, daughter of Philip II of Spain, married King Louis XIII of France.
The French Court loved the new drink of chocolate, believing it was exotic, nourishing and good for your health. Cocoa plantations were set up in Cuba and Haiti in 1684, so in France it became much easier to get your hands on the sought-after cocoa beans.
Next it was the turn of the Dutch, who captured Curacao, an island off Venezuela, in 1634 and brought cocoa beans back to Holland. Chocolate probably reached Germany in 1646, brought back by visitors to Italy. And then finally it reached England in the 1650s…
Chocolate Arrives at England
Chocolate arrived in England in the 1650s and the aromatic drink became hugely popular in King Charles II’s court. But you’d have to be rich to drink it – high import duties on cocoa beans meant that it was expensive.
Gradually it started to become more widely available. In 1657 London’s very first Chocolate House was advertised: ‘In Bishopsgate Street, 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.’
"Went to Mr Bland's and there drank my morning draft in good Chocolatte."--The Diary of Samuel Pepys, 3 May 1664
Soon there were many chocolate houses in London, and like the cafés and coffee shops of today, people went to meet their friends and chat (or gossip) about the issues of the day over a cup of chocolate.
The most famous one was White's Chocolate House in fashionable St James Street, opened in 1693 by an Italian, Frances White. The rich and bitter chocolate drinks were sold alongside ale, beer, snacks and coffee and would have been made from blocks of solid cocoa, probably imported from Spain. You could also buy a pressed cake to make chocolate at home. White’s still exists, but you can’t buy chocolate there now. Like many of the 18th century chocolate houses, it became an exclusive gentleman’s club, and still is to this day.
A new Ingredient - and Chocolate Reaches The Masses
In 1687 an English doctor, Sir Hans Sloane was travelling in Jamaica where he tried chocolate, a local drink. He didn’t like it much, but when he added milk to it, he thought it tasted much better.
He brought his milk chocolate recipe back to England, where it was sold as a medicine. The Cadbury Brothers later used his recipe for the milk chocolate drink they produced between 1849 and 1875.
Chocolate was getting more and more popular, and to meet the new demand, cocoa plantations were built in the West Indies, the Far East and Africa. As a result the price of cocoa beans gradually fell – good news for people who wanted to try chocolate who previously could not afford it…
The high import duties on cocoa were reduced in 1853. Transport had become easier too, due to the Industrial Revolution. It meant that now chocolate was available to a large percentage of the population.
With people clamouring for chocolate, interest grew in how it was made. Some of the earliest cocoa makers were apothecaries or chemists, who considered it a kind of medicine. They also had the equipment and skills 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 cocoa manufacturers began as grocers – like John Cadbury, who started out in 1824 dealing in tea and coffee in his Birmingham shop, and Rowntree's of York, which branched out from the family grocery business.
It was all still about a chocolate drink though – solid ‘eating’ chocolate was not invented until early Victorian times.
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