THE
HISTORY OF
CHOCOLATE
Delicious, sweet, heavenly!
We all love chocolate don’t we, but have you ever wondered about it’s history?
Where did it come from?
Chocolate might be older
than you think, it has an
interesting story dating
back more than
4000 years!
it can be Traced back to
ancient Mesoamerica,
or South America as we know
it today.
It was here that the Olmec,
one of the oldest civilisations
in South America, used the
Cacao plants (Cocoa plant)
to make the first forms of
chocolate.
can you imagine that?
Being the first people to discover
chocolate!
it was quite different from the
chocolate that we know and love
today.
it can be Traced back to
The Olmec took the Cacao beans,
dried and ground them up then
Mixed it with water and sometimes
chilli. This made a very bitter
tasting, frothy drink which
they absolutely loved!
As time went by, this chocolate
drink was loved by different
ancient civilisations, some would
reward their warriors, returning
home from battle, with Chocolate
and some also used it in their
religious ceremonies, believing
chocolate to be a gift
from the gods.
At some point the Cacao bean
was even used as currency
(a form of money),
they valued it more than gold!
The Aztec’s called the
chocolate drink ‘xocolatl’,
which some historians believe is
where The word ‘chocolate’
comes from, others believe it comes
from the word ‘choqui’,
which means warmth.
It was around the 16th century
that a Spanish explorer
called Hernán Cortés travelled
to South America, he Came
across this amazing drink and He
took back to Europe with him.
some people in europe, finding
the drink a bit too bitter, would add
things to sweeten it, such as sugar,
vanilla or honey. This made it
delicious and it quickly became
a sensation!
As they were transporting it home
It’s believed that the Europeans
misspelt Cacao and that’s
how we ended up calling it Cocoa.
The next chapter in chocolate’s
story happened in 1828 when
a man from Amsterdam called
Coenraad Van Houten
invented something called the
Cocoa Press.
This machine could
take all of the fat out Of the
cocoa bean, leaving behind a
fine powder. This powder was a lot
more tasty and some people
began to make drinks with it using
milk instead of water, creating
something similar to ‘hot
Chocolate’ that we have today.
Van Houten’s Cocoa press made it a
lot cheaper to make the cocoa
powder which meant that for
the first time it was affordable
to most people, not just the rich.
People called this the
democratisation of chocolate.
chocolate for all!
Chocolate’s Story doesn’t end there,
in 1847 the British company J.S.Fry
& Sons had an idea. They took
the cocoa fat and recombined
it with liquor and sugar, then poured
the mixture into special moulds,
creating the worlds first ever
chocolate barS!
As you can probably Imagine
chocolate bars became a bit
of a hit!
then, a few years
later in 1873, J.S.Fry & Sons also made
the first ever chocolate easter egg
too.
The first chocolate bars were
a mild dark chocolate, similar to
what we have today, then a Swiss
chocolatier, named Daniel Peter,
Came up with the idea of putting
powdered milk into the recipe,
and in doing so he created
the world’s first
milk chocolate bar.
And that is the story of chocolate.
so, next time you have a tasty treat
pause and remember it’s
amazing history.
