It is because of these countries that we have the chocolate we eat today

The texture and flavor of the tablets that we know today are far from resembling the first that were made in the world.

From the discovery of the cocoa pod seed to prepare drinks, to the creation of the compact, creamy and sweet chocolate bar as we know it today, many years of experimentation, successes and failures, have taken place for centuries in different parts of the world, and so that you know a little more about the history of the also known "food of the Gods", in Puro Chocolate we show you in the form of a chronological list the countries that contributed to the creation of this delicious sweet.

Venezuela:

Theories claim that the region where the cocoa tree actually comes from is between the southern part of Lake Maracaibo and the Magdalena River.

The indigenous people who inhabited the southern area of ​​Lake Maracaibo cultivated this plant long before the arrival of the Spanish on Venezuelan soil.

The cocoa plantations were found in the jungles that look towards Lake Maracaibo, in the "Ancón de Maruma", a border point with the old provinces of Mérida and Trujillo, and some 100.000 trees were counted at the beginning of the XNUMXth century.

The cuicas of Trujillo, adjacent to the timotes of Mérida, prepared and consumed a drink called "chorote", produced by roasting the seeds, grinding them between two stones and preparing them as an infusion in cold or hot water, a procedure that gave rise to a pasta.

Central America:

The Mayans and the Aztecs used the seed of the cocoa pod to prepare drinks.

His recipe, which resulted in a frothy, bitter and sometimes spicy drink, had water and spices that were only found in Central America, such as aromatic flowers, vanilla, chili or chili pepper, wild honey and annatto or annatto.

Spain

After the conquest, and after discovering the seed of the cocoa pod and the exotic drink that was made with it in America, the Spanish took it and adjusted it to their liking with ingredients that did not exist in our continent such as sugar, cinnamon, clove, anise, almond, hazelnut, vanilla, rose water and musk.

And around 1580, the doors of the first spiced chocolate paste factories opened in Spain, which they exported to other European countries such as Italy, France and England, where they also changed their flavor.

England:

It is believed that it was the English who added milk to this drink in their "chocolatiers" at the end of the XNUMXth century.

France:

There are records that the first chocolate bars were made in this country at the beginning of the XNUMXth century, but with a texture that was not very popular.

Netherlands:

The Dutch Chocolatier Conrad van Houten, in his attempt to make a chocolate powder To drink less heavy in a cup, he discovered in the mid-XNUMXth century the way to extract almost all the cocoa butter from the ground seeds, a by-product with which, later, it would be used to create the chocolate bar as we know it today. .

Britain

The chocolate bar as we know it today was the invention of a British chocolatier family, owner of the Fry and Sons company, which launched this new way of eating chocolate on the market in 1847 thanks to the discovery of the Dutch chocolatier Conrad van Houten.

For at least a couple of centuries, after the discovery of the cocoa fruit in the American continent, in Europe chocolate was known as an almost exclusive ingredient to be consumed in drink.

Switzerland:

Swiss confectioner and chocolatier entrepreneur Daniel Peter became famous in 1876 for being the first to mix cocoa with milk to make chocolate bars..

This combination not only gave the chocolate a better taste, but also diluted its strong taste, which he had become accustomed to in those days, and reduced the natural astringency that the chocolate produces. cocoa bean.

The first milk chocolate bar came onto the market in 1876, after seven years of hard work. Today, almost all the chocolate produced in the world is consumed in the form of milk chocolate.