* Chocolate was introduced to the United States in 1765 when John Hanan brought
cocoa beans from the West Indies into Dorchester, Massachusetts, to refine them with
the help of Dr. James Baker. The first chocolate factory in the country was established
there.

* Yet, chocolate wasn't really accepted by the American colonists until fishermen from
Gloucester, Massachusetts, accepted cocoa beans as payment for cargo in tropical
America.

* Where chocolate was mostly considered a beverage for centuries, and predominantly
for men, it became recognized as an appropriate drink for children in the seventeenth
century. It had many different additions: milk, wine, beer, sweeteners, and spices. Dri
nking chocolate was considered a very fashionable social event.

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

* In 1747 Frederick the Great issued an edict forbidding the hawking of chocolate.

* By 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 scale.

*Around 1847, Fry & Sons sold a "Chocolat Delicieux a Manger," which is thought to be
the first chocolate bar for eating.

* Nestle (The History of Chocolate and Cocoa, p. 3) declares that from 1800 to the present
day, these four factors contributed to chocolate's "coming of age" as a worldwide food
product:

1.The introduction of cocoa powder in 1828;

2.The reduction of excise duties;

3.Improvements in transportation facilities, from plantation to factory;

4.The invention of eating chocolate, and improvements in manufacturing methods.

* By the year 1810, Venezuela was producing half the world's requirements for cocoa,
and one-third of all the cocoa produced in the world was being consumed by the
Spaniards.

* The invention of the cocoa press in 1828 by C.J. Van Houten, a Dutch chocolate master,
helped reduce the price of chocolate and bring it to the masses. By squeezing out cocoa
butter from the beans, Van Houten's "dutching" was an alkalizing process.

* In his 1923 volume The Cocoa and Chocolate Industry, Arthur W. Knapp attributes
the rise in popularity of cocoa to these innovations:

1.The introduction by Van Houten of cocoa powder as we now know it.

2.The reduction of the duty to a low figure which remained constant for a number of
years.

3.The great improvements that have taken place in the methods of transport.

4.Improvements in the manufacture of eating chocolate.


* Daniel Peter of Vevey, Switzerland, experimented for eight years before finally
inventing a means of making milk chocolate for eating in 1876. He brought his creation
to a Swiss firm that today is the world's largest producer of chocolate: Nestle.

* In 1879 Rodolphe Lindt of Berne, Switzerland, produced chocolate that melted on the
tongue. He invented "conching," a means of heating and rolling chocolate to refine it.
After chocolate had been conched for 72 hours and had more cocoa butter added to it,
the original "fondant" was created.

* Cadbury Brothers displayed eating chocolate in 1849 at an exhibition in Bingley Hall at
Birmingham, England.

* Swiss confiseur Jules Sechaud of Montreux introduced a process for manufacturing
filled chocolates in 1913.

* The New York Cocoa Exchange, located at the World Trade Center, was begun October
1, 1925, so that buyers and sellers could get together for transactions.

* Brazil and the Ivory Coast are leaders in the cocoa bean belt, accounting for nearly half
of the world's cocoa.

* While the United States leads the world in cocoa bean importation and chocolate
production, Switzerland continues as the leader in per capita chocolate consumption.

* In 1980 a story of chocolate espionage hit the world press when an apprentice of the
Swiss company of Suchard-Tobler unsuccessfully attempted to sell secret chocolate
recipes to Russia, China, Saudi Arabia, and other countries.

* By the 1990s, chocolate had proven its popularity as a product, and its success as a big
business. Annual world consumption of cocoa beans averages approximately 600,000
tons, and per capita chocolate consumption is greatly on the rise. Chocolate manufact
uring in the United States is a multibillion-dollar industry. According to Norman
Kolpas (1978, p. 106),

"We have seen how chocolate progressed from a primitive drink and food of ancient
Latin American tribes -- a part of their religious, commerce and social life -- to a drink
favored by the elite of European society and gradually improved until it was in
comparably drinkable and, later, superbly edible. We have also followed its complex
transformation from the closely packed seeds of the fruit of an exotic tree to a wide
variety of carefully manufactured cocoa and chocolate products. Beyond the historical,
agricultural and commercial, and culinary sides to chocolate, others: affect on our health
and beauty, and inspiration to literature and the arts."

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