COCOA AND CHOCOLATE 
I 
PRODUCTION AND CONSUMPTION 
URING the last thirty or more years the consumption of cocoa 
D in various forms has increased to an extraordinary extent not 
only in this country, but in the United Kingdom — countries 
in which the greatest progress is being made in the science of nutri- 
tion, 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 (1) 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 meth- 
ods 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 trude 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. 
Humboldt 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,- 
7 
