Dart Folk

In this third part of our multi part series on chocolate, we’re
going to pick up our discussion continuing with the Industrial
Revolution.

When the Industrial Revolution hit, so did the mass production
of chocolate, which spread its popularity among the more common
folks of the world as up until that point chocolate was mostly
for the elite and very wealthy.

The first improvements to chocolate came with the Spaniards who
liked the nourishment value of chocolate but felt that the taste
itself could be improved on. Early chocolate was not like the
chocolate we know today, sweet and tasty. It actually had a very
bitter taste which was more an acquired one. The Spaniards
improved on this by adding sugar, vanilla and other extracts.
With the new form and taste, chocolate houses began to pop up in
England to go along with their already established coffee
houses.

The United States’ first exposure to raw chocolate itself was in
1765 when John Hanan brought cocoa beans from the West Indies
into Dorchester, Massachusetts, and refined them with the help
of Dr. James Baker. The first chocolate factory in the country
was set up there.

And yet, in spite of this, chocolate wasn’t really accepted by
the American colonists until fishermen from Gloucester,
Massachusetts began to accept cocoa beans as payment for
transporting various cargoes from tropical America.

It wasn’t until 1851, however, that the United States
experienced its first tastes of bonbons, chocolate creams, hand
candies (called “boiled sweets”), and caramels, thanks to Prince
Albert of London. By 1891 chocolate was considered as much a
part of our culture as tobacco, which was written about in an
1891 publication by Walter Baker.

Up until this time, chocolate was mostly considered as a
beverage only and was rarely consumed in solid form and it was
usually drunk only by men. Gradually it became an appropriate
drink for children. It also had many different variations being
added to milk, wine and beer. Eventually, drinking chocolate
became a very sociable event.

It wasn’t until 1847 that the first chocolate bar for eating was
made. It was manufactured by a company by the name of Fry and
Sons and went under the name “Chocolat Delicieux a Manger.”

Nestlé, one of the largest chocolate manufacturers today, points
out that the four factors most responsible for chocolate’s rise
during the 1800s was the introduction of cocoa powder in 1828,
the lowering of import taxes on cocoa, improvements in
transportation from plantation to factory and finally the
invention of the chocolate bar.

The invention of the cocoa press in 1828 by C.J. Van Houten
helped to greatly reduce the price of chocolate and bring it to
the common folk. During this time was the creation of what we
know today as Dutch chocolate, which was made by squeezing out
cocoa butter from the cocoa beans.

Over the next 100 years many more improvements were made to
chocolate. By the 1990s chocolate had become one of the most
popular products in the world, with consumption of around
600,000 tons a year. Chocolate has become as big a part of world
culture as anything that has come before it and most likely will
come after it.