Discovering the Cacao (Cocoa) Bean

The history of chocolate dates back to early Mesoamerican civilizations. As early as 1500 BC, the Olmec Indians were growing cacao beans. The Mayans and Aztecs also grew cacao and developed chocolate drinks.



Christopher Columbus can claim the credit for being the first person to bring cocoa beans to Europe in the early 1500s, and chocolate drinks became popular in Spain. But it wasn't until nearly 100 years later that the flavor spread to other parts of Europe.



Chocolate Spreads Across Europe

In 1657, a Frenchman opened the first chocolate house in London. The shop was called the The Coffee Mill and Tobacco Roll, and due to the cost of the drink, chocolate was a beverage that could only be enjoyed by the upper class.



Chocolate's popularity continued to grow, however, and by 1674, it had become an ingredient used in cakes and rolls.



The spread and production of chocolate reached another milestone in 1732, when Monsieur Dubuisson of France invented a table mill that could grind chocolate.

The Invention of the Chocolate Bar

Joseph Fry of Bristol, England, made the next major leap, with the invention of a steam engine for grinding the beans. This allowed chocolate to be manufactured on a larger scale. Fry & Sons (which would later merge with Cadbury) can also claim one of the most important inventions in the history of chocolate - the modern chocolate bar in 1847 (although Cadbury's web site says, "by today's standards these original chocolate bars would not be considered very palatable.")



Before Fry & Sons could create the chocolate bar, however, Dutchman Conrad J. van Houten invented a hydraulic press in 1929 that was used to create cocoa powder. Today this process is known as "Dutching."



From there, chocolate took off. Richard Cadbury is said to have created the first known heart-shaped box for Valentine's Day in 1861, and Daniel Peters of Switzerland produced the first milk chocolate bar in 1875, using powdered milk that had been invented by Henri Nestle a few years earlier.



Rudolphe Lindt kept things moving by inventing a process called "conching," which improved chocolate by making it more blendable.



Now it's everywhere!

Now chocolate comes in all flavors (milk, dark, white), with nuts, caramels, cherries and all other kinds of goodies, in cakes, pies, and cookies, and in all shapes and sizes, from bite-size pieces to monster-sized chocolates shaped like Santa, the Easter Bunny or other creatures. You can find chocolate fountains, chocolate fondue, and cookbooks devoted to nothing but chocolate. It's everywhere!



And to think it all started with a simple little bean...