A Chocolate Timeline

A Chocolate Timeline… 

2000BC. Cacao, from which chocolate is created, is said to have originated in the Amazon at least 4,000 years ago. 

1000BC: In the Mayan, Aztec and Olmec cultures of Mesoamerica, kakawa, as Cacao was called, was used as a ritual beverage to honour EK CHUAH, the Merchant God and Patron of Cacao. 

1300s: Aztecs begin to use cacao beans for currency. When the Aztecs conquered tribes they demanded war payment in cacao! 

1502: Christopher Columbus returns from his fourth voyage to the Americas, presenting King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella of Spain with cacao beans. 

1519-1521: Hernando Cortez, the most famous of the conquistadors, brings back shiploads of cacao to Charles V after defeating Montezuma, Emperor of the Aztecs. 

1580: Chocolate beverages with cane sugar, vanilla and exotic spices are consumed in chocolate houses for the nobility of Spain. 

1660: Louis XIV introduces the chocolate drink to the court at his marriage to Marie-Theresa of Austria, making chocolate the fashionable drink for the wealthy citizens of Europe and Cacao plantations are established in the West-Indies. 

1765: The first chocolate factory is established in England. Dr James Baker and John Hannon extract the cacao liquor to make solid chocolate. 

1824: The chocolate firm Cadbury is founded in England. One of the branches is now based in Hobart, Tasmania. 

1828: Dutch chemist Coenraad Van Houten develops the cacao press and patents his new low fat powdered cocoa. Dutch Cocoa powder is to this day still regarded by many as the finest in powdered chocolate. 

1878: Swiss chocolatiers Henry Nestle and Daniel Peter invent Milk Chocolate. 

1879: Swiss chocolatier Rudolphe Lindt invents the conching process of smoothing chocolate. Good quality couverture chocolate is still conched to finer then 15 micron compared to over 30 micron for average chocolate. 

1912: Belgian Chocolatier Neuhaus makes major inroads into refining the chocolate by inventing the Belgian Praline: a moulded or coated small chocolate using a large variety of fine ingredients and flavours. 

1989: Belgian Born and trained confectioner Igor Van Gerwen starts ANVERS CONFECTIONERY in Tasmania, and as they say…. 

…The Rest is History