How did the Swiss become famous for making chocolate?

Question by Zloar: How did the Swiss become famous for making chocolate?
Considering the beans are grown in tropical countries and Switzerland is landlocked, how did the Swiss become famous historically for making chocolate?

Best answer:

Answer by staisil
In 1502, chocolate was first introduced to Spain from Christopher Columbus who returned from his forth voyage to the New World. The Spaniards learned chocolate from the Aztecs at the time of the Spanish invasion in 1519. Spanish explorers learned to convert the bitter cocoa into a beverage and its origin and preparation method was a secret for 100 years. The ancient Aztecs and Mayan cultures discovered the value of the cocoa plant. They believed that power and wisdom came from eating the fruit of the cacao tree.

In the sixteenth and seventeenth century, chocolate was very much a successor in Europe and produced in Switzerland. By the half of the nineteenth century Swiss chocolate started to spread aboard. The Swiss first started making chocolate in the 1800’s, at the time there was no abundant commodities of chocolate and sugar. In 1876, M. Daniel Peter added milk to chocolate to produce a smoother chocolate. However, adding water to chocolate made the chocolate shrink and separate into small pieces. The experimentation took 8 years to perfect before he took his product to Henry Nestle the maker of evaporated milk. Nestle had perfected the manufacture of condensed milk, he and Peter hit upon the idea of mixing sweetened condensed milk with chocolate. In the second half of the eighteenth century, natives of Yal Blenio in the Tessin were responsible for the popularity of chocolate in their country. However, just a few decades later the Swiss made a successful reputation and foreign manufactures spread throughout the world using their technical geniuses effort to efficient the development for the manufacture of chocolate.

Lindt & Sprungli a popular chocolate on the market demand. It began in 1845 that Sprungil and his family took an Italian recipe and impressed the elite of Zurich. It became so popular a new shop was opened and more employees were hired. Then in 1879, Rodolphe Lindt a famous chocolatier perfected a melting chocolate process. Sprungli purchased the Lindt Company and had combined two companies that became very successful and today Lindt produces in six different countries and the greatest premier of chocolate.

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