Drinking Chocolate

Early cocoa and drinking chocolates were balanced with potato starch and sago flour to counter the high cocoa butter content. Other ingredients were added to give healthy properties.

The Cadbury family were closely involved in the evolution of drinking chocolate. From his grocery shop in Birmingham, where he sold mainly tea and coffee, John Cadbury started preparing cocoa and drinking chocolate, using cocoa beans imported from South and Central America and the West Indies. He experimented with a mortar and pestle to produce a range of cocoa and drinking chocolates with added sugar.

By 1831 the cocoa and drinking chocolate side of the business had expanded, so he rented a small factory in Crooked Lane not far from his shop and became a 'manufacturer of drinking chocolate and cocoa'. This was the real foundation of the Cadbury manufacturing business as it is today. The earliest preserved price list of 1842 shows that John Cadbury sold sixteen lines of drinking chocolate and cocoa in cake and powder forms. Customers would scrape a little off the block and mix it with hot milk or water. A solid chocolate for eating was introduced by John Cadbury in 1849, which by today's standards wouldn't be considered very palatable.

In 1866 George Cadbury (John 's son) brought to England a press developed in Holland by Van Houten. The press changed the face of cocoa and chocolate production, as it was designed to remove some of the cocoa butter, enabling a less rich and more palatable drink to be produced. There was no longer any need to add the various types of flour and Cadbury's new cocoa essence was advertised as 'Absolutely pure...therefore Best'.

The consequent availability of cocoa butter led to the development of the smooth creamy chocolate we know today.