A Brief History of Chocolate

The cocoa tree is quite an unusual tree in many ways. One of the main things that make the cocoa tree special is that it is able to control the amount of fruit it grows. Most plant will try to grow as many flowers into fruit as possible in order to carry on the population. The cocoa tree will grow 1000's of flowers but will only allow a small number of them to mature into the final fruit. It is believed that the tree purposely only matures between 20-60 of the flowers because that is all it can handle and sustain its own growth. Maturing flowers into fruit takes alot of energy and chemical processes so the more the tree tries to mature the less growth the tree will be able to achieve and will end up dying. A tomato plant will mature as many flowers into tomatos as it can physically carry because once the tomatos are ripe the plant will die off so it must produce as many offspring as possible for the continuation of the species. The cocoa tree is eventually a big strong tree and does not die off in the winter so it must control the number of cocoa trees that it produces so that it can produce more the next year.
To achieve pollination many plants try to attract insects to spread the plants pollen and carry it to a suitable mate. Most plants tend to attract insects such as bees and butterflies, they produce a pleasent aroma that attracts them. Some use flies such as blue bottles by producing a stench that is akin to rotten meat. The cocoa tree is very popular with midges which are tiny flying insects that have a tendancy to bite people and make them itch. Another reason the midges are great for the cocoa tree is that the midges tend to be nocturnal insects and they are tiny so have very few predators thus the pollen is spread much more effectively.

The part of the tree that is used to make chocolate is the cocoa bean which is inside the fruit produced from the cocoa tree. Basically the cocoa beans are the seeds produced by the tree. Once the fruit is ripe they are picked off of the tree and opend up to reveal the seeds. The seeds are collected and get turned into chocolate while the rest of the fruit is throwen away. This is very similar to what is done with peas. The peas grow in a pod. When the pod is ripe the pod is picked and the peas are removed.
Now that the seeds are picked and collected up and then they undergo a fermentation process because the cocoa seeds are extremely bitter when immediately picked. The process tends to take up to a week to complete. During the fermenting the seeds become a dark brown colour (a chocolate colour) and become far less bitter. 100's of years ago the beans would then be ground up and brewed in boiling water and served as a beverage very much like tea. I have myself tried this concoction and found it to taste very much like bitter mud and not at all like the chocolate we know today. Cortez when among the Aztecs discovered that they had this really unusual drink that they called Xocolatl. Cortez brought the chocolate back to Europe and found that if you added sugar and vanilla to the beverage it was much more paletable and became very popular. Spain created chocolate powder which they exported all over Europe. It was the Quakers who began using the chocolate powder in baking and eventually in time some clever spark realised that by adding milk to chocolate along with sugar you could create a lovely treat.
From the Aztecs to the Spanish to the English to America, through history chocolate has had a very long journey. I mention America at the end because America is the the worlds biggest consumer of chocolate they also happen to be the worlds biggest consumers of coffee. The solid chocolate bars that we know today was actually developed in England by Fry and Sons of Bristol in 1847, whilst the first solid milk chocolate bar was developed in Switzerland by a man called Daniel Peters in 1875.

We can all agree that Swiss chocolate is delicious.