The Delicious history of chocolate

Chocolate originated in Central America and then travelled to Europe.

But British and American companies were the first to make chocolate

Bars.

The Aztecs were first

When the Spanish explorer Don Cortez conquered Mexico in the 1520s he discovered that Aztecs used the beans from the cacao tree  to make a thick rich liquid called chocolati, which they flavoured with spices. It was not sweet and the Aztec drank it cold. Don Cortez liked the drink and sent cocoa beans back to Spain. There sugar was added and the mixture was made into an expensive drink which was reserved for the royal family and the rich for over 100 years.

Chocolate houses

In the 1600s ‘chocolates housed’ were opened in large cities all over Europe. They arrived in England in the 1650s and only served chocolate  as hot drink. In the 1800s English manufacturers like Rowntree and Cadbury started to make  chocolate cheaply. They wanted to offer poor people a delicious and nutritious drink as good alternative to alcohol,  in Holland in the 1860s, the Van Houten brothers discovered the best way to purify cocoa powder. They removed some of the fat, the cocoa butter. Cadbury  was the first to use this cocoa butter to make chocolate bars. They were a great success in Britain. In 1875, the best method for making milk chocolate was found  by the Swiss. Thirty years latter, this method was adopted by British companies as well.

Chocolate in the USA

At about the same time in the USA, Milton Hershey made a lot of money by making sweets. In 1893, at a World exhibition in Chicago, he saw  chocolate for the first time. He decided to produce I and bought German machines. In a very short time 114 varieties of chocolate were produced by his company. He created the town of Hershey in Pennsylvania for his workers with a lot o modern facilities.

A chocolate empire

One of the most famous chocolate companies in the world, Mars, was founded in the 1920s in Washington State (USA) when  Frank C.Mars and his wife decided to cover the candy bars they produced with chocolate. And so Mars Bars were invented. In 1932 their son, Forrest, opened a factory in England, the first in Europe. Mars is perhaps the most famous chocolate bar in the world today. The Mars group is still  managed by members of the Mars family, but it is a multinational company that also makes food and animal products sold in over 100 countries.

The Cocoa crisis

Scientists believe that large cacao tree plantations are now very vulnerable to disease. Chocolate companies think that one day, there may not be enough cocoa beans for everybody. Chocolate will become a food for rich people only once again.