Cocoa press and chocolate bar
Prensa de cacao y tableta de chocolate
- Date
- 1828-1847 · confidence high
- Place
- Amsterdam, Netherlands (Van Houten); Bristol, United Kingdom (Fry)
- Credited to
- Coenraad Van Houten (press and alkalisation, 1828); J. S. Fry & Sons (bar, 1847)
- People
- 👤 Coenraad Johannes van Houten1801–1887
- Field
- Life & health
What it is
Van Houten separated cocoa butter using a hydraulic press and alkalised the powder; Fry mixed powder, sugar and butter to mould the first eating bar. Chocolate went from an aristocratic drink to an industrial confectionery.
Van Houten's press dates from Amsterdam (1828); Fry's bar from Bristol (1847).
What it led to
- The chocolate industry (Fry, Cadbury, Nestlé, Lindt) and Quaker factory towns (Bournville)
- Milk chocolate (Peter, 1875) and conching (Lindt, 1879)
- Cocoa plantations in West Africa
- Mass-market confectionery
Built on
- Cacao domestication and usec. 3300 BCE
- Mesoamerican cacao beveragec. 1900 BCE
- Hydraulic press1795
- Mesoamerican drinking chocolate
- Cheap beet and cane sugar
Made possible
- Milk chocolate1875
- Chocolate conching (Lindt)1879
- Chocolates and bars