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The History of Cocoa and Chocolate
At a later stage, a wooden beater was used to make the drinking chocolate creamier, with no lumps. In any case, notwithstanding its success, chocolate was still a provilege of the nobles and burdened with heavy taxes.The first who succeeded in breaking up the Spanish monopoly was Marquis Antonio Francesco Carletti (a florentine merchant); in 1606, after one of his numberless trips to the Spanish colonies, he brought back some fruits of the cocoa plant and started to market them. Thanks to Marquis Carletti, chocolate successfully reached Italy; in the 17th century, some chocolate manufacturers in Venice, Florence and particulary Turin, became real experts in its preparation and started to export it all over Europe. Up till then, this skill had been only reserved to the monks, who were also renowned for their ability in pharmacopoeia. For many years, the Catholic Church was divided by priests who wondered wheter chocolate, able to soothe the cramps of fast, was a beverage or a food. In 1569, Pope Pius V declared that chocolate does not break one's fast, but the dilemma was resolved only in 1602 when Francesco Maria Brancaccio pronounced the final verdict that reassured consumers and merchants. 
Chocolate obtained everyone's approval; botanists and doctors, for instance, attached great importance to its properties: nutritious, stimulating, aphrodisiac, effective against consumption, rheumatism and pulmonary congestion. By then, its use had spread both in Italy and in Europe; chocolate was served in convivial places where customers, besides enjoying a good cup of chocolate, were especially cultivating political, social and cultural relationships.However, for at least eighteen centuries, chocolate remained a beverage for the elite; only with the French Revolution, which put an end to the supremacy of the aristocracy in Chatolic Europe, and thanks to the Industrial Revolution, chocolate was transformed from an expensive beverage into sound, inexpensive food. The year 1828 marks the beginning of the modern age of chocolate, as far as its manufacturing and processing are concerned; so, the ancient, thick, creamy beverage is overthrown by powdered cocoa. In 1847, chocolate manufacturers created a new method: a blend of powdered cocoa and sugar was mixed with melted cocoa butter (instead of lukewarm water) thus obtaining a thin, non-sticky paste which could be shaped in moulds. Chocolate bars were officially present in Birmingham in 1849. The first chocolate factories were estabilished in the 17th century thus developing new trades and jobs.
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