Coenraad Johannes van Houten

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Coenraad Johannes van Houten was a Dutch chocolate maker. In 1828 he patented an inexpensive method for pressing the fat from roasted cacao beans.

The center of the bean, known as the "nib," contains an average of 54 percent cocoa butter, which is a natural fat. Van Houten's machine - a hydraulic press - reduced the cocoa butter content by nearly half.

This created a "cake" that could be pulverized into a fine powder known as "cocoa." Van Houten treated the powder with alkaline salts (potassium or sodium carbonates) so that the powder would mix more easily with water. Today, this process is known as "Dutching." The final product, Dutch chocolate, has a dark color and a mild taste.

The introduction of cocoa powder not only made creating chocolate drinks much easier, but also made it possible to combine chocolate with sugar and then remix it with cocoa butter to create a solid.

Others began to build on Van Houten's success, experimenting to make new chocolate products. In 1849, English chocolate maker J. S. Fry & Sons produced what was arguably the world's first eating chocolate.

Today, the Swiss are famous for their chocolate. In the late 19th century, they developed a number of processes that contributed greatly to creating the solid chocolate that we all enjoy today.

Two major developments occurred in 1879. First, Daniel Peter, a Swiss chocolate manufacturer, had the idea of using powdered milk (invented by Swiss Chemist Henri Nestle in 1867) to make a new kind of chocolate, milk chocolate. Second, Rudolphe Lindt invented a process called conching, which greatly improved the quality of chocolate by making it more blendable.