The Chocolate history

When Columbus and Cortes returned to Spain the bitter cacao drink of the Aztec culture was introduced to Europe and there it was sweetened to make it more in tune to the European tastes. It became a drink of the elite and wealthy. Within ten years, chocolate was enjoyed throughout the courts in the French aristocracy. Chocolate became known throughout the countries of Europe and in the middle of the 17th century chocolate appeared in England. There it was highly taxed continuing its reputation as a luxury to be enjoyed only by those privileged enough to afford it.Cacao was primarily only for drinking until 1828. Chocolate was prepared as a drink by grinding up the beans into a thin paste and adding spices and sweetening and then adding something to soak up the cocoa butter, which would float to the surface.Coenraad J. Van Houten, a Dutch chemist in that year invented a press which would release the cocoa butter from the bean, leaving the dryer cake that could be ground up into a powder similar to the fat-free cocoa powder we enjoy today.Twenty years later European companies used the presses made by Van Houten to produce the first eating chocolate. By taking what was left after separating the cocoa powder from the butter, the industry saw that they could melt the cocoa butter and combine it with a blend of ground cacao beans and sugar, mix this into a paste and mold it. Edible chocolate was the final product. Chocolate appeared on the market in the United States around the turn of the twentieth century and now nearly one hundred years later is still in harmony with all who love it's unique, rich taste.