A Short History About Chocolate

For nearly 4,000 years, man has used chocolate to appease gods, declare love and cheer soldiers. The bitter-sweet history of this confection began in the Central American rainforests. It was there that Pre-Columbian people first harvested and drank a beverage made from roasted cacao beans and infused it with chilli peppers and vanilla. The name is derived from xocolati, an Aztec term for bitter water.

The Early Mesoamerican people used cacao beans as a currency and a sacrificial offering during religious ceremonies.

Spanish conquistadors loaded the Aztec’s cacao beans aboard their ships and transported the treasure across the Atlantic Ocean. Spaniards eliminated chilli peppers and added sugar and milk to mask the bitter flavour. Cacao factories opened in Spain and chocolatiers introduced their product to the rest of Europe. Over time, this confection became a luxurious treat.

The chocolatiers’ manufacturing process changed dramatically after the Industrial Revolution. Processes were developed to remove cocoa butter from the cacao bean and make hard chocolates. Dutch chocolatier Conenraad Johannes Van Houten created the process for extracting cocoa’s bitter taste and for making dried cocoa and cocoa butter. This opened the door for today’s chocolates. The treat that began as a beverage became a candy in 1847 when Joseph Fry produced it in the form of a bar.

Ten years later, Henri Nestle and Daniel Peter created milk chocolate when they developed a process to preserve the product by extracting water from milk. Rodolphe Lindt’s conching process enabled chocolatiers to heat and blends their ingredients. This allowed Milton Hershey to deliver affordable mass produced candy bars. His company and others supplied American servicemen with this confection while they were stationed abroad.

Family farms are the primary source of the world’s cacao beans. Before cacao beans are shipped to factories, they are fermented for approximately one week and then dried for several more days to develop their flavour. Cacao beans with little or no fermentation are less flavourful, but retain more healthy antioxidants.

Candies are available in white, dark and milk versions and vary in their concentration of cocoa solids, milk and sugar. White candies are made with sugar, milk products and cocoa butter. Milk candies contain milk and 10% to 25% cocoa solid. Dark candies contain sugar, little or no milk and are often used for baking.

The confection that began in the rainforests has travelled around the world and even into outer space.