If you can't imagine life without chocolate, you're lucky you weren't born before the 16th century. Until then, chocolate only existed in Mesoamerica in a form quite different from what we know. As far back as 1900 BCE, the people of that region had learned to prepare the beans of the native cacao tree. The earliest records tell us the beans were ground and mixed with cornmeal and chili peppers to create a drink - not a relaxing cup of hot cocoa, but a bitter, invigorating concoction frothing with foam. And if you thought we make a big deal about chocolate today, the Mesoamericans had us beat. They believed that cacao was a heavenly food gifted to humans by a feathered serpent god, known to the Maya as Kukulkan and to the Aztecs as Quetzalcoatl. Aztecs used cacao beans as currency and drank chocolate at royal feasts, gave it to soldiers as a reward for success in battle, and used it in rituals. The first transatlantic chocolate encounter occurred in 1519 when Hernán Cortés visited the court of Moctezuma at Tenochtitlan. As recorded by Cortés's lieutenant, the king had 50 jugs of the drink brought out and poured into golden cups. When the colonists returned with shipments of the strange new bean, missionaries' salacious accounts of native customs gave it a reputation as an aphrodisiac. At first, its bitter taste made it suitable as a medicine for ailments, like upset stomachs, but sweetening it with honey, sugar, or vanilla quickly made chocolate a popular delicacy in the Spanish court. And soon, no aristocratic home was complete without dedicated chocolate ware. The fashionable drink was difficult and time consuming to produce on a large scale. That involved using plantations and imported slave labor in the Caribbean and on islands off the coast of Africa. The world of chocolate would change forever in 1828 with the introduction of the cocoa press by Coenraad van Houten of Amsterdam. Van Houten's invention could separate the cocoa's natural fat, or cocoa butter. This left a powder that could be mixed into a drinkable solution or recombined with the cocoa butter to create the solid chocolate we know today. Not long after, a Swiss chocolatier named Daniel Peter added powdered milk to the mix, thus inventing milk chocolate. By the 20th century, chocolate was no longer an elite luxury but had become a treat for the public. Meeting the massive demand required more cultivation of cocoa, which can only grow near the equator. Now, instead of African slaves being shipped to South American cocoa plantations, cocoa production itself would shift to West Africa with Cote d'Ivoire providing two-fifths of the world's cocoa as of 2015. Yet along with the growth of the industry, there have been horrific abuses of human rights. Many of the plantations throughout West Africa, which supply Western companies, use slave and child labor, with an estimation of more than 2 million children affected. This is a complex problem that persists despite efforts from major chocolate companies to partner with African nations to reduce child and indentured labor practices. Today, chocolate has established itself in the rituals of our modern culture. Due to its colonial association with native cultures, combined with the power of advertising, chocolate retains an aura of something sensual, decadent, and forbidden. Yet knowing more about its fascinating and often cruel history, as well as its production today, tells us where these associations originate and what they hide. So as you unwrap your next bar of chocolate, take a moment to consider that not everything about chocolate is sweet. at the end we all love chocolate and one of our favourite things
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Rowan Sharkawy
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The history of tea
An exhausted Shennong killed himself seventy-two times as he wandered the forest in search of seeds and edible plants throughout his long day. But before the poison died, he put a leaf in his mouth. He chewed it and came back to her, then found the tea. At least one old story says so. Tea does not cure poison, but the story of Shennong, the legendary discoverer of Chinese agriculture, shows the importance of tea in ancient China. Archaeological evidence shows that tea was grown here 6,000 years ago, 1,500 years before the Pharaohs built the Great Pyramid of Giza. The Chinese tea tree is the same type of tea tree grown all over the world today, but it was originally eaten differently. It can be eaten as a vegetable or porridge with grains. Tea went from being a food to a drink about 1,500 years ago when people realized that the combination of heat and moisture could produce complex and different flavors in the green leafy vegetable. . Preparation methods have varied over the centuries, typically heating the tea, filling it into a carrier cake, turning it into a powder, and mixing it with hot water to make a drink called a matcha or matcha. Matcha became so popular that it spawned a Chinese tea tradition. Tea is the subject of books and poems, a favorite drink of emperors, and a language of art. They paint beautiful pictures on the tea foam, like the espresso art you see in coffee shops these days. During the Tang Dynasty in the 9th century AD, a Japanese monk brought the first tea tree to Japan. Eventually the Japanese developed their own unique way of drinking tea, which became the Japanese tea ceremony. During the Ming Dynasty in the 14th century, Chinese emperors changed the standard of pressed tea to loose leaf tea. At that time, China had almost complete control over the world's tea tree, as tea was one of China's top three exports, along with porcelain and silk. As tea drinking spread throughout the world, China's economic power and influence grew. The spread of this tea began in the early 1600s, when Dutch traders brought tea to Europe. Many believe that the tea made by Queen Catherine of Braganza, a Portuguese princess, when she married King Charles II in 1661, was popular with British royalty. At the time, England was expanding its colonial power and becoming a new world power. As England developed, the interest in tea spread throughout the world. In 1700, tea was sold ten times more than coffee in Europe, and the plant was grown only in China. The tea trade was so profitable that competition between Western trading companies led to the birth of the world's fastest ships, the cutter ships. Everyone raced to bring the tea back to Europe first to increase the profits. At first, the British bought this Chinese tea with silver. Since the price was too high, they decided to exchange the tea for another substance, namely opium. This has led to public health concerns in China as people become addicted to the drug. In 1839, a Chinese officer ordered his men to destroy British opium as a protest against British rule in China. This action started the first Opium War between the two countries. The war raged on the Chinese coast until the fall of the Qing Dynasty in 1842 and the port of Hong Kong was handed over to the British and trade was resumed on harsh terms. This conflict has weakened China's position in the world for more than a century. The British East India Company also hoped to grow its own tea and gain more market power. So they sent botanist Robert Fortune to run an undercover operation to steal tea from China. Undercover, he embarks on a perilous journey through the tea mountain regions of China, eventually capturing tea trees and skilled tea workers in Darjeeling, India. Since then, this plant has spread and helped the rapid growth of tea as an everyday commodity. Today, tea is the second most consumed beverage in the world after water, and there are almost as many ways to prepare the drink as there are cultures around the world, from Turkish rezzi cheese with salted Tibetan butter cheese.
By Rowan Sharkawy5 months ago in 01
iPod dreams
I wish Apple still made iPods. I regret not buying one when they started to discontinued these amazing devices. In my opinion it was a bad business move. I’m sure there is a market for people who still would buy a iPod device to keep in their car or in their gym bag to use solo at the gym or on a walk or a for a hike to escape the everyday hustle of life and its over connectivity.
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A Digital Pandemic.
After a long day in the department, Emily dropped her worn and tired dark leather bag on the counter before navigating through the small and disordered kitchen to grab a cold beer from a contrarily empty fridge. She hadn't had a chance to unpack since moving from Newcastle to Glasgow, let alone shop for sustenance, except for cold brews naturally.
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