Where does chocolate come from?

By tulaml
  • Jan 1, 1000

    WHERE DOES THE CHOCOLATE WE EAT COME FROM?

    WHERE DOES THE CHOCOLATE WE EAT COME FROM?
    Chocolate is made from the cacao bean, which comes from cocoa plants. Cocoa plants can only grow near the equator. Cocoa plants grow in the Philippines, but a lot of the chocolate that's available in the market is imported from companies such as Nestle and Cadbury. These companies source their cacao beans from plantations in the Ivory Coast, which is where 40% of the world's chocolate comes from.
  • Jan 1, 1400

    HONDURAS

    HONDURAS
    The sweet pulp of the cacao fruit is fermented into an alcoholic beverage
  • Jan 1, 1500

    LATIN AMERICA

    LATIN AMERICA
    Cacao beans are used as currency; 100 beans could be exchanged for a turkey hen
  • Jan 1, 1519

    MEXICO

    MEXICO
    Spanish conqueror Hernan Cortes arrives in Mexico Legend says the Aztec king Montezuma mistook Cortes for a deity and welcomed him with a banquet with chocolate

  • PHILIPPINES

    PHILIPPINES
    a Spanish galleon transported pure Mesoamerican Criollo, a type of cacao plant, across the Pacific from Acapulco, Mexico to the Philippines

  • EUROPE

    EUROPE
    Mixed with honey or sugar, chocolate is fashionable throughout Europe Heavily taxed, it was mostly a privilege for the wealthy class

  • UNITED KINGDOM

    UNITED KINGDOM
    The steam engine made mass production possible

  • WEST INDIES, ASIA, AND AFRICA

    WEST INDIES, ASIA, AND AFRICA
    As the demand for cocoa grew, cocoa plantations were established in the West Indies, Asia and Africa and the price of cocoa beans gradually began to fall as greater quantities came onto the market.

  • ENGLAND

    ENGLAND
    John Cadbury opens a grocer’s shop at 93 Bull Street, Birmingham. Among other things, he sold cocoa and drinking chocolate, which he prepared himself using a pestle and mortar.

  • NETHERLANDS

    NETHERLANDS
    Coenraad van Houten, a Dutch chemist, discovers a way to make powdered chocolate - this is known as Dutch cocoa.
    He did this by removing half of the natural fat (cacao butter) from chocolate liquor, then treating the mixture with alkaline salts to cut the bitter taste.

  • UNITED KINGDOM

    UNITED KINGDOM
    Joseph Fry discovers that you can make moldable chocolate paste by adding melted cacao buter back into Dutch cocoa.

  • SWITZERLAND

    SWITZERLAND
    German pharmacist Henri Nestle launches milk chocolate.

  • Davao

    Davao
    As of 2015, 80 percent of the Philippine's chocolate comes from Davao

  • COCOA TREES ONLY GROW CLOSE TO THE EQUATOR

    COCOA TREES ONLY GROW CLOSE TO THE EQUATOR
    Cocoa is produced in countries in a belt between 10ºN and 10ºS of the Equator, where the climate is appropriate for growing cocoa trees. The largest producing countries are Côte d'Ivoire, Ghana and Indonesia.