Friday, 5 April 2024

Chocolate in Sydney

The following advertisement appeared in the Sydney Gazette and New South Wales Advertiser 24 April 1803. Simeon Lord was a Sydney merchant at this time.

Click image to enlarge

Robert Crawford wrote the book, More than a glass and a half: a history of Cadbury in Australia to commemorate one hundred years of chocolate at the Cadbury factory in Tasmania. In the first chapter he writes about the uptake of chocolate for drinking and eating throughout the world. On page 15 he wrote:

However, newspaper reports ... reveal that cocoa and chocolate were beginning to find their way into the colony. In 1803 the 'long-established Shop of Simeon Lord' was advertising tea, coffee, and chocolate as 'approved articles ... at the most reasonable and reduced prices'.

There are a number of theories about the arrival of chocolate in Europe, one being that the explorer, Hernan Cortez, brought cocoa beans and the chocolate drink-making tools to Europe in 1528. Drinking chocolate certainly came to Europe in the 1500s. It soon became a popular drink and hot chocolate remains a popular drink throughout the world today.

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