The Time Line & History Of Chocolate

1500 BC-400 BC
The Olmec Indians are believed to be the first to grow cocoa beans as a domestic crop.

250 to 900 CE
The consumption of cocoa beans was restricted to the Mayan society's elite, in the form of an unsweetened cocoa drink made from the ground beans.

AD 600
Mayans migrate into northern regions of South America establishing earliest known cocoa plantations in the Yucatan. 14th Century The drink became popular among the Aztec upper classes who usurped the cocoa beverage from the Mayans and were the first to tax the beans. The Aztecs called it "xocalatl" meaning warm or bitter liquid.


1502
Columbus encountered a great Mayan trading canoe in Guanaja carrying cocoa beans as cargo.

1519
Spanish explorer Hernando Cortez recorded the cocoa usage in the court of Emperor Montezuma.

1544
Dominican friars took a delegation of Kekchi Mayan nobles to visit Prince Philip of Spain. The Mayans brought gift jars of beaten cocoa, mixed and ready to drink. Spain and Portugal did not export the beloved drink to the rest of Europe for nearly a century. 16th Century Europe The Spanish began to add cane sugar and flavourings such as vanilla to their sweet cocoa beverages.

1570
Cocoa gained popularity as a medicine and aphrodisiac.

1585
First official shipments of cocoa beans began arriving in Seville from Vera Cruz, Mexico.

1657
The first chocolate house was opened in London by a Frenchman. The shop was called the The Coffee Mill and Tobacco Roll. Costing 10 to 15 shillings per pound, chocolate was considered a beverage for the elite class.

1674
Eating solid chocolate was introduced in the form of chocolate rolls and cakes, served in chocolate emporiums.

1730
Cocoa beans had dropped in price from $3 per lb. to being within the financial reach of those other than the very wealthy.

1732
French inventor, Monsieur Dubuisson invented a table mill for grinding chocolate.

1753
Swedish naturalist, Carolus Linnaeus was dissatisfied with the word "cocoa," so renamed it "theobroma," Greek for "food of the gods."

1765
Chocolate was introduced to the United States when Irish chocolate-maker John Hanan imported cocoa beans from the West Indies into Dorchester, Massachusetts, to refine them with the help of American Dr. James Baker. The pair soon after built America's first chocolate mill and by 1780, the mill was making the famous BAKER'S ® chocolate.

1795
Dr. Joseph Fry of Bristol, England, employed a steam engine for grinding cocoa beans, an invention that led to the manufacture of chocolate on a large factory scale.

1819
The pioneer of Swiss chocolate-making, François Louis Callier, opened the first Swiss chocolate factory.

1828
The invention of the cocoa press, by Conrad Van Houten, helped cut prices and improve the quality of chocolate by squeezing out some of the cocoa butter and giving the beverage a smoother consistency. Conrad Van Houten patented his invention in Amsterdam and his alkalising process became known as "Dutching".

1847
Joseph Fry & Son discovered a way to mix some of the cocoa butter back into the "Dutched" chocolate, and added sugar, creating a paste that could be moulded. The result was the first modern chocolate bar.

1849
Joseph Fry & Son and Cadbury Brothers displayed chocolates for eating at an exhibition in Bingley Hall, Birmingham, England.

1851
Prince Albert's Exposition in London was the first time that Americans were introduced to bonbons, chocolate creams, hand candies (called "boiled sweets"), and caramels.

1861
Richard Cadbury created the first known heart-shaped candy box for Valentine's Day.

1868
John Cadbury mass-marketed the first boxes of chocolate candies.

1876
Daniel Peter of Vevey, Switzerland, experimented for eight years before finally inventing a means of making milk chocolate for eating.

1879
Daniel Peter and Henri Nestlé joined together to form the Nestlé Company.

1879
Rodolphe Lindt of Berne, Switzerland, produced a more smooth and creamy chocolate that melted on the tongue. He invented the "conching" machine. To conch meant to heat and roll chocolate in order to refine it. After chocolate had been conched for seventy-two hours and had more cocoa butter added to it, it was possible to create chocolate "fondant" and other creamy forms of chocolate.

1897
The first known published recipe for chocolate brownies appeared in the Sears and Roebuck Catalogue.

1910
Canadian, Arthur Ganong marketed the first nickel chocolate bar.

1913
Swiss connoisseur Jules Sechaud of Montreux introduced a machine process for manufacturing filled chocolates.

1926
Belgian chocolatier, Joseph Draps starts the Godiva Company to compete with Hershey's and Nestlé’s American market.

Chocolate Through the Years
The story of chocolate, as far back as we know it, begins with the discovery of America. Until 1492, the Old World knew nothing at all about the delicious and stimulating flavour that was to become the favourite of millions. The Court of King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella got its first look at the principal ingredient of chocolate when Columbus returned in triumph from America and laid before the Spanish throne a treasure trove of many strange and wonderful things. Among these were a few dark brown beans that looked like almonds and seemed most unpromising. There were cocoa beans, today's source of all our chocolate and cocoa. The King and Queen never dreamed how important cocoa beans could be, and it remained for Hernando Cortez, the great Spanish explorer, to grasp the commercial possibilities of the New World offerings.

Food of the Gods
During his conquest of Mexico, Cortez found the Aztec Indians using cocoa beans in the preparation of the royal drink of the realm, "chocolatl", and meaning warm liquid. In 1519, Emperor Montezuma, who reportedly drank 50 or more portions daily, served chocolatl to his Spanish guests in great golden goblets, treating it like a food for the gods. For all its regal importance, however, Montezuma's chocolatl was very bitter, and the Spaniards did not find it to their taste. To make the concoction more agreeable to Europeans, Cortez and his countrymen conceived of the idea of sweetening it with cane sugar. While they took chocolatl back to Spain, the idea found favour and the drink underwent several more changes with newly discovered spices, such as cinnamon and vanilla. Ultimately, someone decided the drink would taste better if served hot. The new drink won friends, especially among the Spanish aristocracy. Spain wisely proceeded to plant cocoa in its overseas colonies, which gave birth to a very profitable business. Remarkably enough, the Spanish succeeded in keeping the art of the cocoa industry a secret from the rest of Europe for nearly a hundred years.

Chocolate Spreads to Europe
Spanish monks, who had been consigned to process the cocoa beans, finally let the secret out. It did not take long before chocolate was acclaimed throughout Europe as a delicious, health-giving food. For a while it reigned as the drink at the fashionable Court of France. Chocolate drinking spread across the Channel to Great Britain, and in 1657 the first of many famous English Chocolate Houses appeared. The hand methods of manufacture used by small shops gave way in time to the mass production of chocolate. The transition was hastened by the advent of a perfected steam engine which mechanized the cocoa grinding process. By 1730, chocolate had dropped in price from three dollars or more per pound to within the financial reach of all. The invention of the cocoa press in 1828 reduced the prices even further and helped to improve the quality of the beverage by squeezing out part of the cocoa butter, the fat that occurs naturally in cocoa beans. From then on, drinking chocolate had more of the smooth consistency and the pleasing flavour it has today. The 19th Century marked two more revolutionary developments in the history of chocolate. In 1847, an English company introduced solid "eating chocolate" through the development of fondant chocolate, a smooth and velvety variety that has almost completely replaced the old coarse grained chocolate which formerly dominated the world market. The second development occurred in 1876 in Vevey, Switzerland, when Daniel Peter devised a way of adding milk to the chocolate, creating the product we enjoy today known as milk chocolate.

Chocolate Comes To America
In the United States of America, the production of chocolate proceeded at a faster pace than anywhere else in the world. It was in the pre-revolutionary New England -- 1765, to be exact -- that the first chocolate factory was established. Chocolate has gained so much importance since that time, that any interruption in its supply would be keenly felt. During World War II, the U.S. government recognized chocolate's role in the nourishment and group spirit of the Allied Armed Forces, so much so that it allocated valuable shipping space for the importation of cocoa beans. Many soldiers were thankful for the pocket chocolate bars which gave them the strength to carry on until more food rations could be obtained. Today, the U.S. Army D-rations include three 4-ounce chocolate bars. Chocolate has even been taken into space as part of the diet of U.S. astronauts.