Earlier on in the worlds history, back before America was established, and even hundreds of years before the new world was discovered, cocoa trees were being cultivated by the Maya Indians, the Incas of Peru and the Aztecs of Mexico. Chocolate was the national drink of the Aztecs. The Emperor, Montezuma, liked his flavored with vanilla, but many of the people added different kinds of spices to it.

When Cortez conquered Mexico in 1519 chocolate was introduced to Spain and was a huge hit, it soon became a favorite drink in Spain. As a result, this popular drink soon spread to most of Europe. Chocolate was considered to be a gourmet drink, and was extremely expensive, costing fifteen shillings a pound, which was quite a lot in those days. However it costs a lot for a good reason. Cocoa trees only grow on the equator and ten degrees north or south. Also each tree only grows a few pods, making the annual yield only about one pound of cocoa powder per tree. Because of the high cost of chocolate, when the first chocolate drinking house was opened in London, England in 1657, it was mostly visited by the very wealthy and upper-class people.

The drinking chocolate that was very popular in those days is quite different from the drinking chocolate we buy in stores today. It was very thick and very rich, it was either spiced or sweet, and was made from whole bean with its full butter content. As far as eating chocolate goes, it was usually sold by the block. Eating chocolate was also made very different in those days then it is created today. The old way was to balance the cocoa butter with farinaceous additives such as arrowroot, and was made in blocks so that the desired amount could be scraped into a saucepan.

In1828, Van Houten of Holland introduced a method of pressing the cocoa butter out of the cocoa bean, which was the first time anything resembling modern day chocolate could be produced. When Cadbury’s brought out their cocoa essence in 1866, pure cocoa was available for the first time. Even after van Houten introduced his new method, most manufactures still followed the old way of adding in arrowroot to counter the fattiness of the cocoa butter.

The now world-famous Cadbury Brothers started from a young man named John Cadbury who started a tea and coffee shop. He began to experiment with cocoa beans and eventually started selling his own chocolate. He was so successful that he rented a small factory to enlarge his manufacturing capacity and took his brother into partnership and founded he world famous Cadbury Brothers.
Throughout history, chocolate has risen in popularity and continues today as it is often used in gourmet dishes or simply as a casual snack.

Tyler F.