A bit of background to our historical chocolates
We are often asked about when and how chocolate came to Europe, so here are a few simple facts about chocolate and its history:
- Chocolate or cacao originates from central America, and was being consumed at least as early as 2000 BC.
- Aztec chocolate was generally drunk cold, with chilli, vanilla and other locally available flavours and spices.The first European contact with chocolate was on 15 August 1502, when Columbus and his son seized a canoe containing Cacao beans.
- The earliest written record of chocolate in Europe dates to 1544 with a gift of cacao beans to King Philip II of Spain.
- The Spanish dominated chocolate for the first hundred years or so, and adapted the Aztec recipes to suit their palette and supplies. The early chocolate recipes include our 1685 Hot Chocolate.
- Chocolate becomes publicly available in England around the 1680s, and were similar to the 1685 recipe, but soon changed to be more like our
- The Victorians reduced the use of spices in a lot of foods, and so were the first to produce what we might call a ‘plain chocolate’, although this still contains vanilla.
- Chocolate remained predominantly a drink up until the development of the chocolate bar in the 19th century.
