Introduction of Chocolate to London
The first printed evidence we have of Chocolate being used in London is in the notice in the Public Advertiser in 1657:
In Bishopsgate St is an excellent West India drink called chocolate to be sold, where you may have it ready at any time, and also unmade at reasonable rates.
By the end of the Commonwealth in 1659, Thomas Rugge, a London diarist, was writing in his Journal about coffee, chocolate and tea as new drinks in London, and referring to chocolate as ‘a harty drink in every street’.
Royal Consumption and Early Popularity
Charles II’s physician Henry Stubbe wrote ‘The Indian Nectar’ in praise of chocolate. He said there were two qualities of chocolate- ordinary and royal. The royal variety which the King enjoyed was rich in cocoa, and not too sugary. Samuel Pepys wrote in his diary on 24 April 1661 that in order to allay his appalling hangover, following the festivities surrounding the coronation of Charles II, he drank chocolate as a morning-after cure:
“Waked in the morning with my head in a sad taking through the last night’s drink, which I am very sorry for; so rose, and went with Mr Creed to drink our morning draught which he did give me in Chocolate to settle my stomach.”
18th Century Consumption and Taxation
During the 18th Century there was a great increase in the consumption of chocolate throughout Europe. It was not long before cocoa suffered the same fate as tea and coffee and had duties imposed upon it. All chocolate, at this time to be made into drinking chocolate, had to be wrapped in stamped papers supplied by excise men and then sealed proving tax had been paid.
By 1800 the tax was two shillings in the pound on cocoa imported from British Colonies. So its use was restricted to the well off and chocolate became a feature of the daily life of the smart set. Addison wrote in the Spectator that its use was considered a token of elegant and fashionable taste. Beautiful sets of china were made for the service of chocolate. Some can be seen in the Victoria and Albert Museum.
Supply and Quality Variations
Much chocolate was supplied not by specialists but by grocers. the Russells of Bloomsbury used a grocer who supplied them with many other products.
Likewise the Purefoys, a landed Buckinghamshire family used an agent to buy things not produced on their estate and he bought chocolate from a grocer called Moulson.
Mrs. Purefoy, a determined lady, kept a close eye on the transactions of her agent. On one occasion she wrote that the chocolate was so bitter and highly dried that she could not drink it. perhaps the grocer had heated it too long or too quickly. Her complaint illustrates the variations in quality which one might expect from small workshops.
Middle Class Consumption
We have seen that chocolate was drunk and valued by the upper classes and beyond the reach of the lower classes, but the middle classes?
For them it was a rare luxury.
A lawyer called Burrell living on the then large income of £300 a year kept a diary between 1692 and 1711, in which he mentions the new hot chocolate drink twice only, once as a gift and once when he drank chocolate in London.
Notable Diary Entries
Dr. C Morris
21 Feb 1721
“Mr. Hill, Mr. Lucas, & I went to Mr. Burland’s [his son in law] to see his and his wife’s Pictures, & Breakfasted on Chocolate.”
Mary Delany
Though an aristocrat, Mary Delany complained about the high price of chocolate.
October 5. 1727 to her sister
“Mrs. Badge nor I could not rightly understand you about the Bohea tea, for she does not remember she was ordered to bespeak any, and you say in your letter that I must send the Bohea tea that was bespoke and a pound more.
She imagines the tea Mama meant was “tea dust,” but she can’t get any for love nor money, but has bought two pound of Bohea, at thirteen shilling a pound, which the man says is extraordinarily good; but everything of that kind grows very dear, chocolate especially. I have sent you a pound at three and sixpence, the best in town at that price, but am afraid it is not such as my mother will like, but I desire her approbation of it as soon as she has tasted it. [Mrs. Granville having been brought up in Spain was particularly fond of chocolate.]
James Woodforde
James Woodforde a country clergyman, like many others who travelled was commissioned to buy chocolate and also records it as part of a special celebration.
3 October 1763
“Went to Sherborne this Morning early on purpose upon ye Grey to get me a Beaurou of one Hodinett a Cabinet-Maker and to get a pound of Cocoa for Mrs Melliar of C.Cary, of one Mr. Sanson.”
Chocolate in the Navy
One exception was the navy. As early as 1780 it was served to British sailors by Captain James Ferguson, who had enjoyed drinking cocoa while the fleet was anchored in Antigua, in the British West Indies. He and the ship’s surgeon understood the nutritional value of cocoa, and as a dried provision it was ideally suited to long sea voyages. Limes provided essential vitamin C, thereby preventing scurvy while cocoa provided a whole gamut of other vitamins and minerals as well as valuable and nourishing proteins and fats. The comfort and stimulation afforded by the drink to men taking the night watch must have been considerable.
By 1824 the cocoa issue or CI was instituted in the Navy , and each man received his daily ration, a one ounce block of chocolate along with his rum and limes.
A Curious Use of Chocolate
Private Parsons arrived at the Balaclava front in the Crimea in November 1852.
“chocolate also used to be sent out to us, this reaching us made up in the shape something like a big flat cheese. This chocolate we found would burn, so breaking it into pieces and piling stone around, we then would set fire to it, place our canteen on top and then wait for something warm, this being the only way we succeeded in doing so in the first few months.
Today chocolate is available in many forms varying from cheap basic to the most highly refined luxury products such as those sold by the Chocolate Detective based on a single organic estates beans from Grenada.
