Chronology of Chocolate

The history of chocolate begins in South America. The origin of wild cacao is assumed to be here. New research in the highlands of Ecuador shows that cocoa has been used here for about 5500 years. The highlands of Ecuador are therefore the starting point for early trade up to the Pacific coast as well as for the spread of the use of cacao to the north.

In Central America, the cacao tree was already known almost 4000 years ago. While in South America mainly the pulp was used, pure or in fermented form as an alcoholic drink, in Central America both the pulp and the bean were used. The history of chocolate leads from Ecuador to present-day Mexico.

The Olmecs were the first known advanced civilisation in what is now Mexico. Their heyday was from 1500 to 400 B.C. This culture is best known for its colossal stone heads, which presumably represent rulers. Hardly anything has survived from this culture. However, finds from the settlement areas prove that the Olmecs prepared a cocoa drink as early as 1800 to 1000 BC. The word «cacao» was probably also already in use at that time. In it, there is the word «Kakawa», which survived the transformation of languages and became «cacao».

The Maya decorated vessels with inscriptions and ornaments, marking the use of the cacao drink In one vessel, inscribed with the glyph «Kakawa», archaeologists found a dark coating on the inside. Analysis showed that this contained theobromine, an ingredient of cocoa, which was a strong indication that the powder was the remains of a cocoa drink. This cocoa was produced between 460 and 480 AD. Another milestone in the history of chocolate.

The Maya cultivated the cacao tree, growing it in large fields and developing irrigation systems to get the most bountiful harvests.

There were different recipes and ingredients and cacao was also used as a porridge or spice. Diego De Landa, Bishop of Yucatán and Mayan explorer of the 16th century, wrote: «From corn and ground cacao they make a syrup which is very tasty and with which they celebrate their festivals»; from the cacao they extract a fat that looks like butter, and from this and corn they make another tasty and appreciated potion.

The cacao drink was used by the Maya, among others, as a kind of holy water to celebrate the adolescent’s transition into adulthood. In addition to copal and humans, cacao was also offered as a sacrifice to the gods. Both cacao and drinking vessels were included as grave offerings. As a medicinal plant, cocoa was a panacea among the Maya, used for diarrhoea, measles or birth pains. Cocoa butter, on the other hand, was applied to inflammations, dandruff and animal bites thanks to its disinfecting properties, or used as a general skin care. The cocoa bean was also used as a means of exchange and payment or for tribute payments.

At the beginning of the 13th century, the advanced civilisation of the Aztecs began, who built their capital where Mexico City is today. As with the Maya, cocoa was considered valuable and only used by the upper social classes. Tribute payments from subordinate provinces in particular were made to the capital in cacao beans and drinking vessels.

The Aztecs turned the history of cacao into a history of chocolate. They called both the cocoa and the cocoa drink «Cacahuatl». Scientists assume that the preparation corresponds to that of the Mayan culture, but that the drink was primarily drunk cold. The Aztecs used cocoa and cocoa butter as a remedy, as a gift and as an offering.

The first European to become acquainted with cocoa beans was Christopher Columbus in 1502. On his fourth voyage to the Americas, he encountered a Mayan merchant ship: «Their ship was loaded with all kinds of goods, colourful cotton cloth, copper tools and weapons, clay vessels, and they were also carrying a kind of almond». These almonds were cocoa beans. But it was the conquistador Hernán Cortés who first consumed the cocoa drink. This bitter drink did not appeal to European tastes.

In 1544, the Dominican friar Bartolomé de Las Casas brought a jar of chocolate to Prince Philip of Spain on his journey from Guatemala to Spain. This began a period of almost a century in which the Spanish and Portuguese consumed chocolate; the rest of Europe, however, was still reserved for this.

The first official shipload of cocoa arrived from Mexico to Seville in Spain in 1585.

Towards the end of the 16th century, cocoa became increasingly popular. Hot drinks were something exotic and unusual in Europe at this time. The cocoa drink was already widespread among the Spanish settlers in Mesoamerica when it found its way to Europe in the 16th century, and by the 17th century it was firmly established within the European aristocracy of the Old World. Cocoa was also used as a medicine in Europe, as it was in Mesoamerica, especially as a general tonic. The European nobility celebrated the drinking of chocolate by adding sugar and well-known spices such as cinnamon and aniseed, especially within the family circle. In addition, various vessels and services developed specifically for the consumption of the cocoa drink. These vessels make it easier for us today to trace the spread and history of chocolate.

Due to the enormous demand in Europe, there were bottlenecks in the supply of cocoa. The Spanish conquerors brought between 15 and 20 million slaves from West Africa to America within 350 years to make them work on the (cocoa) plantations. This did not fall under the papal ban on slave labour of 1537, as it only affected the Indian population. Finished goods such as weapons and tools were shipped to West Africa via the Atlantic Triangular Trade. They were exchanged for human slaves, who in turn would work on the sugar, cocoa, indigo and tobacco plantations in America. Thus, the history of chocolate is also a part of European colonialism and the exploitation of local populations and resources.

By the mid-17th century, chocolate was already known as a drink in Britain. Interestingly, the advent of chocolate coincided with the arrival of coffee from the Middle East and tea from China. Chocolate remained expensive long after the other two drinks had become affordable to the middle class; but it was one of the offerings commonly found in British coffee houses. Within a decade, Samuel Pepys began to report regularly on the consumption of chocolate in his diaries.

Although it is not known exactly how it got there, chocolate was very popular at the court of Louis XIV, at least before his second marriage to the rather puritanical Madame de Maintenon. In 1693 she tried to ban chocolate at Versailles. Nevertheless, chocolate became more and more popular in France. It was probably introduced by the Sun King’s mother, Anne of Austria, whose father was the Spanish King Philip III, but possibly also by his first wife, the Infanta Maria Teresa, who also grew up in Spain.

From the middle of the 18th century onwards, the chocolate drink slowly found its way into the upper middle classes.

Various coffee houses and chocolate parlours opened and served as central meeting places and places of exchange.

The pioneer of Swiss chocolate production, François Louis Cailler, opened a chocolate factory with machines he had developed himself near Vevey on Lake Geneva in 1819.

Foundation of the Favarger chocolate factory in Geneva and Philippe Suchard in Serrières (Neuchâtel). Suchard in Serrières (Neuchâtel) develops a grinding machine for mixing sugar and cocoa. With this machine, Suchard was able to produce 25 to 30 kg of chocolate per day.

Coenraad Van Houten, a chemist and chocolate manufacturer in Amsterdam, patented an invention that would soon transform chocolate from a drink into a confection. He had developed a process for making chocolate powder that used hydraulic pressure to remove almost half of the cocoa butter from the cocoa mass.

Joseph Fry & Son, a chocolate manufacturer, was founded by a Quaker who practised medicine before opening the business. In 1847, under the direction of Joseph Fry’s great-grandson, the company discovered a way to mix some of the melted cocoa butter (along with sugar) back into the defatted or «Dutch» cocoa powder to make a paste that could be pressed into a mould. The resulting bar was such a success that people soon thought of eating and drinking chocolate.

Another Quaker, John Cadbury, opened a grocery shop in Birmingham, England, in 1824, where he roasted and ground his own cocoa beans, among other things. In 1854, Cadbury received royal permission to supply Queen Victoria with cocoa and chocolate as her sole supplier. In 1866, Cadbury’s sons Richard and George, who had taken over the business, acquired a Van Houten machine for the factory and began marketing their own cocoa powder. In 1868 Cadbury launched the first chocolates in a box decorated in a sentimental Victorian style.

The Cadbury family maintained their Quaker values even as the company grew into an empire.

In the 1860s, Swiss chocolate maker Daniel Peter repeatedly tried to create a milk-flavoured chocolate bar, but failed to produce a smooth mixture of milk and chocolate. In 1867 Henri Nestlé, also Swiss, worked on a concentrated infant food for which he had to find a way to treat the milk so that it would not spoil during storage but could be quickly reconstituted for use. The result of his efforts, a sweetened condensed milk, proved perfect for Peter’s purposes; its low water content enabled it to be mixed with chocolate to make a bar that would not spoil. In 1879 Peter and Nestlé joined forces to form a company. Nestlé became the largest food company in the world.

In 1879 Rudolf Lindt invented the conching machine, a shell-shaped granite bed over which rollers moved back and forth to grind the chocolate paste, sugar and, if used, milk into a smooth paste that was smoother than anything that had been achieved before. Lindt called his new chocolate products «fondants», after the popular and particularly creamy sweets that were based on a cooked mixture of sugar and cream of tartar.

In 1900, the prices of cocoa and sugar dropped considerably, making chocolate affordable for the middle class.

The Swiss chocolatier Theodor Tobler and Emil Baumann invent the unique triangular chocolate called «Toblerone». The name Toblerone is a pun on the names «Tobler» and «Torrone», the Italian name for honey-almond-nougat.

Camille Bloch founds Chocolats Camille Bloch SA, a traditional Swiss family business based in Courtelary in the Bernese Jura.

The modern history of chocolate begins during the Second World War. Therefore, the German chocolate industry produced almost exclusively for the army during this period. Cocoa was constantly carried as emergency rations and tonics. SCHO-KA-KOLA, a mixture of cocoa, coffee and kola nut, which is still sold today, was created only for this purpose.

Currently, chocolate bars in particular continue to be the number one sales hit. Experimental flavours as well as plantation and fine chocolates are on the rise. But chocolates in organic quality or from fair trade are also continuing to grow on supermarket shelves.

Consumers have become more sensitive due to various «scandals» and campaigns by non-governmental organisations. In addition, the cosmetics industry is making use of the positive effects and ingredients of cocoa beans. Especially cocoa butter and mass are found in creams, soaps, body lotions and masks.

Bibliography

• The True History of Chocolate by Sophie D. Coe. New York: Thames and Hudson, Inc., 2020.
• The Chocolate Bible by Adrianne Marcus. New York: G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 1979.