COCOA IN EUROPE.

Hawera Star, Volume XLVIII, 30 August 1924, Page 2

COCOA IN EUROPE.

CELEBRATING THE FOURTH CENTENARY.

The fourth centenary of the introduction of cocoa into Europe has been celebrated. Of the three popular beverages cocoa was introduced into Europe first. There is no reference to tea in European literature before 1588, and the appreciation of coffee as a beverage dates only from the seventeenth century. How long before the discovery of America by Europeans . cocoa was used in its native country it is hard to say. The soldiers of Cortez who landed in Mexico in 1519 first encountered it there, and it was introduced into Spain about 1521 (says the Observer). Coffee, we know, was used in Abyssinia in the fifteenth century, and it was then stated that it had been used from time immemorial. Tea, according to Chinese legend, goes back to almost 3000 ye are before Christ, and, if legend is a doubtful basis of history, it is at least certain that it was already a beverage as long ago as the Tang dynasty, which began in the seventh century. To» England the three beverages were introduced about the same time, the middle of the seventeenth century. London coffee-houses date from 1652. Five years later the Public Advertiser suniounced that ‘‘ln Bishopsgate Street, in Queen’s Head Alley; at a Frenchman’s house, is an excellent West India drink, called chocolate, to be sold, where you may have it ready at 'liny time, and also unmade at reasonable rates.” Cocoa was brought from the West Indies to Bristol, and it is suggested that the large commercial interest which Quakers have in the product may perhaps be traced to this association, Bristol having for long been one of the chief centres of Quakerism. Pepys drank his first cup of tea on 25th September, 1660, but at least two years before this date it had come, to London, for tho Mercuriua Politicos of September, 1658, contains the advertisement: “That excellent, and by all physicians approved China diink called by Chineans tclm by other nations tay, alias tee, is sold at the Sudanese Head, a cophee house in Sweetings Rents by the Royal Exchange, London.” Does any modern Angelina seek to commend herself to her Edwin by frothing him up_ a cup of chocolate? Me may doubt it. But very many Edwins now seek to win smiles from tl.eir Angelinas by purveying them boxes of chocolates. The world now consumes far more cacao-beans than ever in th© past. When the century began 100.000 tons sufficed for all By .1922 400,000 were needed. Here, in the United Kingtwice r to ? k 1U that year near,v tv ice as much as we did in 1913. But the Lmted States wanted much more than double The coming of prohibi! tion no doubt creates an appetite for chocolates as well as other sweets.