Is it always an interesting learning experience to look back on those chocolate manufacturers who contributed to the variety and quality of the bulk chocolate that we have today. Coenraad Van Houten is one of many that made a difference in our chocolate experiences today.
The Dutchman, Coenraad Jahannes Van Houten, was the first in a line of inventors and entrepreneurs who modernized the manufacture of chocolate. He sought a better method for extracting the cacao “butter” or fats from the beans. He had started a factory in Amsterdam in 1815 and was unhappy with the traditional method of boiling the chocolate and skimming off the fats.
By 1828, he had invented and patented a dry press, which left much less butter in the end product. Van Houten then treated this “cocoa” powder with various alkaline salts to make it more adaptable to a variety of mixes, and very quickly, many of the older methods of manufacturing yielded to cocoa.
Some twenty years later an early form of “instant” chocolate had become widely accepted, and about mid-century, Joseph Fry and his sons seized upon this new cocoa powder and began to market the first commercial chocolate bars.
The Van Houten innovation was, historically and gastronomically speaking, just in time. By 1800, chocolate drinks had fallen well behind competing alkaloid beverages. In the West, coffee dominated almost everywhere and has remained in the lead to the present day – except in England, where coffee first defeated chocolate and was then, in turn, defeated by tea.
Chocolate was to survive and flourish, however, by going its separate way and leaving the field of adult drinks to its competitors. Except in a few of the Mediterranean countries and in parts of Latin America, where chocolate drinks retained popularity, commercial hot chocolate now became heavily sugared cocoa powder and drunk mostly by children and invalids. And bulk chocolate itself went on to be transformed into the chocolate bars and wrapped candy, devoured by all ages and classes.
Tags: chocolate, history of chocolate, hot chocolate, instant cocoa
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