Milka, Toblerone, Cailler and Lindt are some of the most famous brands that were born in this country.
The Swiss were not the first Europeans to learn about the cocoa bean, nor to add sugar to it and take it to Europe, those were the Spaniards, but they were the ones who with perseverance, technique and ingenuity managed to turn this food into one of the finest morsels. and desirable in the world.
And it is that before passing through the hands of Swiss experts, the chocolate bar that was known in the world was bitter and sandy. Here we tell you about its evolution in this country:
Despite the fact that chocolate arrived in Europe, from Spain, in the XNUMXth century XVI, it is in the XNUMXth century when the Swiss became interested in its production.
Cailler
The chocolate factory still operational more antigua from Switzerland, Cailler, is proof of this. It was installed in the Vevey region in 1819 by its founder François-Louis Cailler, who learned the technique for making solid chocolate in Italy.
However, it was his son-in-law, the Swiss businessman Daniel Peter, who ended up catapulting this chocolate shop after discovering, with the support of the German Henri Nestlé, how to add chocolate milk.
This combination, which came to fruition after seven years of painstaking experimentation, not only gave the chocolate a better taste, but also reduced the natural astringency produced by the chocolate. cocoa bean. The first milk chocolate bar came onto the market in 1876.
Lindt
Two years after Peter's discovery, in 1878, the Swiss chocolate manufacturer Rodolphe Lindt invents the “concha”, a machine that slowly grinds cocoa beans, sugar and milk for hours, obtaining a much finer consistency, which was previously impossible to achieve.
In its beginnings, this factory only made hard and bitter chocolates like the rest of the chocolatiers of the time, but in its desire to evolve, its owner began to experiment with chocolate.
According to the web portal of this brand, on a Friday night, after months of testing, Lindt leaves the factory without turning off the cocoa paste machine; Finding on Monday, when he returned, a chocolate with an extra smooth texture and flavor that had not been achieved until then.
milka and toblerone
Also featured in this history of Swiss chocolate is the Swiss chocolatier Phillip Suchard, founder of Milka, pioneer in the use of melanger to make chocolate; and Jean Tobler, creator of toblerone, the first brand in the world to incorporate the classic Italian torrone into chocolate, makes uniquely shaped breakable and shareable tablets and among the first to make white chocolate.
I don't think that I have made it finer or more delicious, adding milk, vanilla, etc., pure cocoa loses its essence and real flavor. Made it more accessible to the masses? Yes. But the rest is subjective. Personal opinion.
Venezuelan Chocolate is like our Rum, the best in the world, but our consumerist and imported culture is better, leading us to prefer a Toblerón instead of Savoy, or a Scotch instead of a Santa Teresa lineage.