The Aztecs created what we now know as chocolate by fermenting, drying and roasting the beans and then grinding the kernels to produce cocoa mass (chocolate liquor).

Although Christopher Columbus was the first European to carry beans back to Europe (around 1502) they were as curiosities but it is his fellow countryman, the conquistador Herman Cortes, who is credited with introducing them to the Western World a little over 40 years later.

Records suggest that he didn't particularly like the Aztec delicacy of "hot chocolate"- a thick cocoa drink laced with ground chillies and dyed red to look like blood - but recognising its potential he took a load of cocoa beans back to Spain. These were used to seed plantations in Trinidad, Haiti and the West African island of Fernando Po (now Bioko) and gave Spain a virtual monopoly of the cocoa market for almost a century. From the sixteenth century onwards, cocoa cultivation spread to the other Caribbean Islands, parts of South America, islands in the Gulf of Guinea and South East Asia and more recently to the South Pacific Islands of Samoa and New Guinea.

Chocolate drinks were developed in Spain that were seasoned with pepper, vanilla, sugar and cinnamon or mixed with beer or wine. They became such a hit that Spanish society ladies had them served during Mass. When the French latched on to it, they immediately hailed it as a wondrous aphrodisiac and, by slapping heavy taxes on it, further enhanced its status as a drink for the rich and decadent.

In 17th and 18th century England, the drink became so popular that chocolate houses threatened the existence of the traditional English pub.

The first commercial chocolate factory in the UK (J.S. Fry) began in Bristol in 1728.
The first primitive version of the chocolate bar is again credited to J.S. Fry and Son, when in 1847 they mixed sugar and cocoa butter with chocolate powder to produce a dry, grainy and not particularly tasty solid slab.

Later still the American, Milton Hershey became the first to mass produce chocolate when in 1894 he began selling the world's first Hershey Bar for five cents. For more information on the Hershey story, connect to Hersheys web site.

References

Some of this information was found in an article from the Sydney Morning Herald by Sigrid Kirk, don't have a record of the page or year... (1993??). Thanks to Dr Roy Tasker, UWS, Nepean, a confirmed chocaholic, for providing a reprint.
Other material is from:
"Chocolate" by Judy Miller, Chem Matters., 16, 1986.
"The Effects of the Organic Acids in Cocoa on the Flavour of Chocolate" by C.S. Holm, J.W. Aston, K Douglas in J. Sci Food Agric., 1993,61, 65-71.
"The acid test for chocloate" by K. Douglas, J Aston and C. Vosten in Chem in Aust.,1995, 19.
"Chocolate, Cocoa & Confectionery: Science & Technology", B.W. Minifie, AVI Publishing Company, INC., Westport, Connecticut, USA, 2nd Edition, 1980.
"Chocolate-melting the myths", D. Gaskell, Chem in Brit., 1997, 33, 32-34.

Growing cocoa plants

The genus Theobroma consists of some twenty species. The only one of commercial value, T. cacao, is divided into two main groups, termed "Criollo" and "Forastero", but there is a third group known as "Trinitario" which is basically a cross between these two.
Forastero can be considered "ordinary grade" and is the most important commercial type. The Trinitario and Criollo types are known as "Fine" and "Flavour" cacaos and at one time commanded premium prices from the chocolate manufacturers.
The countries which traditionally produced the majority of these "Fine flavour" cacaos are Ecuador, Venezuela, Trinidad and Tobago, Grenada, Jamaica, Sri Lanka, Indonesia as well as Samoa. However, production figures for these types have now dwindled to the point where they constitute less than 7% of the total.

In Jamaica, cocoa has many advantages as a crop. Among these are the following:
1) It is second only to forest in protecting the soil from erosion by the inter-locking of the foliage of adjacent trees.
2) It will grow well on steep slopes which need protection.
3) It is less subject to praedial larceny than other crops.
4) It is easier to reap and sell than other crops.
5) Animals find the husks from its pods attractive as feed.
6) when planted under coconut trees, it suppresses weeds, thereby significantly reducing the cost of weeding.
7) There is only one disease affecting Jamaican cocoa - Black Pod Rot. However this may be severe in areas with heavy rainfall and on the lower sides of narrow valleys.
8) Cocoa costs less to maintain than other crops.
9) Cocoa is the easiest tree crop to progagate.
10) There are central fermentaries to process the Jamaican cocoa crop.
11) A big advantage of cocoa as a crop is that even in a massive hurricane such as Gilbert (1988), only a small number of trees are totally uprooted and killed. Although foliage is lost from trees and they may be partially uprooted, the bulk of the trees do not perish.
Cocoa trees may yield 20-30 pods a year each containing 30-40 beans. The cocoa plants supplied to Jamaican farmers are crossed between PA 150 with ICS 1 or PA 150 crossed with ICS 60, which yield around 67-75 boxes per acre in their sixth year, before coming into full bearing.
ICS 1 is the variety most resistant to Black Pod Rot and holds the world record for yield from an acre. In 1970/71, an acre at Orange River yielded 147 boxes (3,316 lb dried) and had a five year average of 114 boxes.
It takes seven years for cocoa to come into full bearing and good yields can only be achieved by reducing overhead shade, pruning and by controlling Black Pod Rot disease and rats.

Reference

"Spotlight on Cocoa"- Pt 1 The Gleaner Sept 2, 1995 pg 9B.
"Spotlight on Cocoa"- Pt 2 The Gleaner Sept 9, 1995 pg 9B.
articles by the retired chief Cocoa Agronomist at the Cocoa Industry Board, Brian Topper.

Processing the beans

The unfermented wet beans, taken from the pod, lose about 65% of their weight and the final moisture content is optimally 6%.

Each of these contain an aromatic nucleus (A), a branched aliphatic chain (B) and a functional group (C).
A study of 75 compounds with a more or less cocoa flavour found the following features: A, B and C present, 65%, A and C present 80%, A or B present, 90%, C present 90%.

Reference

M. van Praag, J. Agric Food Chem., 1968, 16, no. 6 , 1005. 

For more information, see for example a paper on the neuropharmacology of cannabis.
Other substances in chocolate that have been discussed as pharmacologically significant in terms of creating chocolate highs or addiction include: histamine (0.04 - 0.13 %W/W), serotonin (0.620 - 5.82 %W/W), theobromine (< 1.3 %W/W), tryptophan, phenylethylamine, tyramine and salsolinol. However, many of these occur in higher concentrations in other foods with less appeal than chocolate and so if there is a psychoactive effect in chocolate it is probably not due to their presence.

Return to links to the chemistry of other Jamaican items, including spices and fruit and vegetables.

Return to Chemistry, UWI-Mona, Home Page

Created Aug 23rd 1995. Last modified 13th August-97.
URL http://wwwchem.uwimona.edu.jm:1104/lectures/cocoa.html