When, in the 18th century, empiric scientists like Pascal and
others laid the basis of modern science, the medical potential of
chocolate faded into the background while its nutritious and
delicious values gained ground. The recipe for the chocolate drink
at the same time became simpler and more purified: cocoa, sugar,
vanilla and milk or water became the major players, while musk,
amber and medical ingredients were left out.
1700 - 1900
Enjoying the taste of good chocolate became more important than its potential for curing ailments of all sorts.
”Chocolate girl”, A.H. Paine (painting from Jean-Etienne Liotard) 1702-1789 AD
Many chocolate museums today show beautiful collections of 18th century chocolate china. A logical conclusion from this would lead us to say that drinking chocolate must have been very popular then. The reality was quite the opposite: its consumption stayed far below that of the already popular coffee and tea and was limited to rare occasions and – because of its very high price – it could only be enjoyed in the highest ranks of society.
A complete set of chocolate china was nothing more than a means of displaying one's wealth since it meant that one could afford regular chocolate consumption. So chocolate consumption remained very limited in those days and chocolate china served as a kind of barometer for the family assets.
1725: Botanist Henry Sloane dedicates the first complete
monograph to the cocoa tree.
1726: King George I raises taxes on chocolate sales and
consumption.
1728: The family Fry sets up the first chocolate
factory in Bristol, UK, using hydraulic machinery and
equipment to process and grind the cocoa beans.
1732: The French artisan Debuisson invents a table
to grind cocoa. It still needs manpower but it makes the processing
more efficient and the hard work a little more comfortable.
1737: The cocoa tree gets an official Latin botanical name from
Linnaeus: Theobroma cacao. The name refers to the mythical
background of the tree and means literally: “cocoa, food of the
gods”.
Although cocoa originates from the Americas, the United States only
got to know chocolate in 1765. It was John Hannon
– an English state commissioner – who first introduced it there.
Together with Dr. James Baker, they built the
first chocolate factory in Massachusetts.
1778: In France, Doret built the first machine
that automatically ground cocoa beans.
1822: Global cocoa demand is on the rise as the world gets more and
more excited about chocolate. But political instability grows in
Latin America and plantation workers become scarce. Therefore cocoa
traders seek new soil in which to grow the precious tree, which
they find in Ecuador, Brazil, Asia and Africa. It will take quite a
few attempts, over decades, in Africa though, before cocoa really
becomes a success. As a consequence, the cocoa trade gradually
shifted from the ancient to the newer plantations.
In 1828 the Dutchman Coenraad Van Houten established a very important invention that would have an impact on the rest of the history of cocoa and chocolate: the cocoa press. This press makes it possible to separate cocoa solids from cocoa butter. In fact, with this innovation Van Houten was the first to establish a defatted cocoa powder that becomes much easier to dissolve in water or liquids.
In 1840 the first pressed chocolate tablets, pastilles and
figures are produced in Belgium by the chocolate company
Berwaerts.
Historians still argue about who produced the first ever chocolate
in solid form, as the hard and shiny chocolate we are familiar with
today. However, the British family Fry claims to
have marketed the first ever solid chocolate bar in 1846: an
important, historic step. We must not forget that chocolate was
originally consumed mainly as a drink, as a liquid. It was
processed in some cookies and cakes, but never consumed in
solid form. Progress in cocoa and chocolate production and
industrialization made it possible to give chocolate creative and
innovative shapes that would forever change its appearance.
After Baker and Hannon, another important name in the American
chocolate history is Ghirardelli, an Italian
confectioner. He often traveled to Peru and started exporting beans
to San Francisco to sell them to the gold prospectors. By 1860,
Ghirardelli discovered by chance how to produce almost completely
fat-free cocoa powder. One of his employees had put some leftover
ground cocoa beans in a cotton bag and left them overnight. The
following morning Ghirardelli discovered that the cocoa butter was
absorbed by the bag and had seeped onto the floor. Ghirardelli
later engineered a way to extract cocoa butter from ground cocoa to
create a very soluble cocoa powder.
In 1865 chocolate was first mixed with hazelnut paste in Italy: the
first gianduja was born. It became a very popular
recipe that even led to the major success of “gianduietti”, small
bonbons of pure gianduja.
In many European countries at the end of the 19th century
chocolate became legally protected because it had by then become
the subject of a wide-scale fraud: many manufacturers produced
cheap chocolate by replacing cocoa with cocoa shells and cocoa
butter by other fats. At the same time, many governments developed
a growing sense of responsibility for safety and purity of
foodstuffs. In the main parts of Europe, chocolate could only be
labeled as chocolate if it contained at least 32% of pure cocoa
solids. In Belgium, the government determined it at 35% in 1894.
Strict control and legal prosecution of food forgers led to an
overall quality improvement of chocolate.
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