COGOA AND CHOCOLATE. 



i. 



PRODUCTION AND CONSUMPTION. 



DURING the last twenty-five years the consumption of cocoa in 

 various forms has increased to an extraordinary extent not 

 only in this country, but in the United Kingdom and Germany 

 countries in which the greatest progress is being made in the science 

 of nutrition, and in the inventions which have done so much to cheapen 

 the cost and improve the quality of articles of food. This increase in 

 consumption is due to several causes, among the most prominent of 

 which are (i) a reduction in the retail price, bringing it within the 

 means of the poorer classes; (2) a more general recognition of the 

 value of cocoa as an article of food, and (3) improvements in methods 

 of preparation, by which it is adapted to the wants of the different 

 classes of consumers. 



There is no doubt that, if it had not been for the monopoly of the 

 production which Spain long possessed, and which kept the price, on 

 its introduction into England, at a point where only the rich could 

 afford to buy it, cocoa would have come into as general use there as it 

 did in Spain, and would, perhaps, have been received with more favor 

 than tea or coffee, which were introduced about the same time. 



It appears that, in the time of Charles II., the price of the best 

 chocolate (very crude undoubtedly, as compared with the present 

 manufactures) was 6s. 8d. a pound, which, if we take into account the 

 greater purchasing power of money at that time, would be equal to at 

 least $5.00 a pound at this time for a very coarse article. 



Ilumboldt estimated the consumption of cocoa in Europe, in 1806, 

 as 23,000,000 pounds per annum, of which from 6, 000,000 to 9,000,000 

 were supposed to be consumed in Spain. The estimated consumption 

 in Europe at the present time is over 170,000,000 pounds. 



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