How to Make a No Bake Cherry Cheesecake

As it starts to get warmer and cherry season kicks into a gear, you might yearn for the refreshing and enriching flavor of a cherry cheesecake but shudder (or sweat) at the thought of turning on the oven. With this recipe, all you need to do is mix the ingredients, chill, and savor this light dessert.



* 16 ounces cream cheese ([2] 8 ounce packages, 0.45 kg)
* 1 tablespoon (13g) vanilla extract
* 1 teaspoon (5g) lemon juice
* 1 14 oz. can (415mL) of sweetened condensed milk
* 8 oz. (227g) cherry pie filling
* 1 pie crust (already baked)


Steps

1. Soften the cream cheese by letting it stand for about 10 minutes at room temperature.
2. Chill lemon juice in refrigerator for 5 minutes.
3.
Mixing ingredients
Mixing ingredients
Mix together the softened cream cheese, sweetened condensed milk, and vanilla in a large mixing bowl. Mix or beat until smooth.
4. Add the lemon using a wooden spoon for stirring.
5.
Pouring batter into the crust
Pouring batter into the crust
Pour the batter into the pie crust.
6.
Evenly spread the filling
Evenly spread the filling
Spread the cheesecake filling evenly throughout the pie crust.
7.
Chill.
Chill.
Chill this cheesecake in the refrigerator for 20 minutes or until cold.
8.
Adding cheeries on top of the cheesecake
Adding cheeries on top of the cheesecake
Top the cheesecake with cherry pie filling.
9. Chill the cheesecake for another 10 minutes.
10. Serve.


Tips

* The cherry pie filling does not have to be cold, but can be if desired.
* Chocolate or other favorite topping may be used instead of cherries.


Things You'll Need

* Large mixing bowl
* Wooden spoon
* Mixer
* Can opener
* Regular spoon

How to Make an Oreo Cheesecake from Scratch

This cheesecake is a proven crowd pleaser. It’s great for holidays or family gatherings. This recipe uses Oreo brand cookies, but any chocolate sandwich cookie can be substituted. Constructing this piece of art is a two-day process, taking approximately 13-14 hours to complete. Although time consuming, the taste is well worth the wait.
[edit] Ingredients

1 pound (16 ounces, 455 grams) of Philadelphia Cream Cheese

1 cup (200 grams) of granulated white sugar

5 large size eggs

1/2 cup (119 grams) of heavy whipping cream

1 bag (510 grams) of Oreo cookies

For decorating:

Oreos

1 cup (238 grams) heavy whipping cream

3/4 cup (90 grams) confection sugar

1/2 cup mini chocolate chips


[edit] Steps

1. Remove cream cheese from the refrigerator and allow softening for approximately 1 hour.
2. Use 9” (23cm) cheesecake pan to measure parchment paper for covering the bottom and sides.



3. Remove an entire row of Oreos from the bag.
4. Use a knife and remove the icing in the middle of the Oreos. Don't worry if it breaks, it will be crushed up anyway.



5. Put the outside of the Oreos in the food processor. After processing, place the crushed Oreos aside.
6. Pre-heat the oven to 280 degrees F (138 degrees C).
7. Cut the softened cream cheese into approximately 1/2 inch (1.25 cm) slices



8. Adding the slices one by one, put 1 pound (450 grams) of the cream cheese in the mixer.
9. Add half of the sugar to the mixer and allow mixing for approximately 2 minutes.
10. Adding the slices one by one, put the last of the cream cheese in the mixer.
11. Add the rest of the sugar to the mixer and allow mixing for approximately 2 minutes.
12. Add five whole eggs to the mixer, one at a time, and mix each until yolk is no longer visible


13. Add 1/2 cup (119 grams) of heavy whipping cream and allow mixing for approximately 1-2 minutes.
14. Add approximately 2 spoonfuls of the crushed Oreos to the mixer and allow mixing.
15. Break Oreos (half a row) into pieces and add to the mixer.
16. Make sure the previously measured parchment paper is correctly placed in the bottom and around the sides of the pan.
17. Place the previously crushed Oreo crumbs into the pan, spread as evenly as possible.



18. Pour the cheesecake filling from the mixer into the pan.
19. Fill the half-sheet cake pan 1/2 with water and place the 9” cheesecake pan in the middle.
20. Bake cheesecake at 280 degrees (138 degrees C) for 2 hours and 35 minutes (use convection oven if available).
21. Remove cheesecake and let cool for 1 hour.
22. Refrigerate cooled cheesecake for 8 hours.


Decorating

1. Remove cheesecake from pan and place on serving dish.
2. Put 1 cup (238 grams) of heavy whipping cream into the small bowl.
3. Add 3/4 cup of confection sugar to the heavy whipping cream.
4. Mix ingredients with a hand mixer until it becomes thick and fluffy (approximately 5-7 minutes).
5. Using the rubber spatula, spread the cream over the top and sides of the cheesecake.



6. Crumble Oreos onto the top of cheesecake.
7. Sprinkle mini chocolate chips onto the top of the cheesecake.
8. In a medium pot heat water (medium to high heat).
9. Place the melting pot into the heated water.
10. Put 1/2 cup of mini chocolate chips into the melting pot.
11. Cut a very small hole in the corner of the snack size zip lock bag.



12. Scoop the melted chocolate into the snack size zip lock bag.
13. Squeeze the bag and drizzle melted chocolate onto the top of the cheesecake and enjoy!




[edit] Things You'll Need
For making the cheesecake

9” cheesecake pan

Parchment paper

Half-sheet cake pan

Mixer

Food Processor

Measuring cups (1 cup and ½ cup)

Spoon

A History of Cacao and Chocolate

The book Chocolate in Mesoamerica: A Cultural History of Cacao, edited by Cameron L. McNeil, is an interdisciplinary attempt by scholars from different fields, linguists, botanists and archaeologists, to track the history of cacao in Mesoamerica, from pre-Columbian times until today. The Swedish natural scientist Carolus Linnaeus called the cacao tree Theobroma (“food of the gods”) cacao. The word ‘cacao’ generally refers to the species T. cacao, although among the Maya of Mesoamerica it is sometimes also applied to the closely related Theobroma bicolor.

In the introduction, editor Cameron L. McNeil writes:

Chocolate is made from the seeds of the Theobroma cacao L. tree, commonly referred to as the ‘cacao tree.’ For many pre-Columbian cultures of the Americas, cacao seeds and the comestibles produced from them were literally part of their religion and played a central role in their spiritual beliefs and social and economic systems. In isolated areas these traditions continue to this day. Parts of this plant have been consumed in Central and South America for thousands of years. For many of the ancient and modern cultures in these regions, cacao was not only an important part of religious rituals, but also a component of beverages and foods, a topical cream, and an ingredient in medicine. It reached its height of importance in pre-Columbian Mesoamerica, whose northern limit begins in Central Mexico, and which then encompasses Guatemala, Belize, El Salvador and western Honduras. Mesoamerica is renowned for its myriad highly stratified societies including the Olmecs, Maya, and Mexica (Aztecs). Cacao played a central role in the complex elite culinary traditions and practices of these cultures.


According to her, “The origins of the cacao tree remain unknown, with scholars debating both its natural distribution and area of domestication. The variety of comestibles that were made from this plant in pre-Columbian times is also the subject of disagreement. Was cacao used to produce only beverages, or was it also a component of other types of food? Were beverages made from the pulp of cacao pods or only from the seeds? Who consumed cacao — only members of the elite, or was it widely available to the lower socioeconomic classes?”

The genus Theobroma evolved in South America, where both its greatest number of species and most closely related genus, Herrania, are to be found. From the upper Amazon basin, T. cacao spread through Central America and into Mexico either naturally or through human agency. Scholars continue to debate how this tree migrated, but also in what form — wild or as a cultigen. The earliest cacao iconography in the Americas may come from Peru. A 2500-year-old Peruvian vessel is decorated with pod elements that could be cacao. The written history of cacao is definitely Mesoamerican (we know of no true writing system in pre-Columbian South America), from perhaps as early as the mid-third century A.D. (Early Classic Period) in the form of glyphs on ceramic vessels. Mexica, Maya and Mixtec codices from later periods record the ritual significance of cacao. Domestication is uncertain, but a vessel form known throughout Mesoamerica as well as Andean South America from around 1000 B.C. supports a date for domestication by at least this time.

As McNeil says, “Debates continue as to whether T. cacao has two domestication spheres, one in South America and one in Mesoamerica, or only one, located either in South America or in Mesoamerica. The concept of domestication itself further confuses this issue as scholars today recognize that domestication is a process with many steps. For example cacao could have arrived from South America as a cultigen, only to be more fully domesticated in Mesoamerica. It seems likely that if cacao was domesticated in both South America and Mesoamerica, the focus of selection for these two processes was not the same, as South Americans most commonly have used the pulp for consumption, while Mesoamericans most commonly used the seeds.”

It is likely that maize was first cultivated, indeed created, in Mesoamerica and later imported to South America, but for the most part it seems that cultural exchanges between the civilizations of Mesoamerica and those of South America were surprisingly limited. There are two subspecies of Theobroma cacao. According to Cameron L. McNeil:

Before the arrival of Europeans, criollos were endemic to Central America and forasteros were endemic to South America (A. M. Young 1994). Whether through natural evolution or human selection, the T. cacao species in Mesoamerica came to produce fruit and seeds distinct from those in the southern hemisphere. Criollo seeds are milder, that is, less bitter, than the South American members of their species and make a tastier chocolate. Forastero-type cacao plants are hardier, and, not only do they generally produce pods two years earlier than criollos do (at three years), they also produce more pods per tree (Millon 1955a:11). However, the flavor of forastero beans is bitterer than the flavor of criollos. After sixteenth-century European contact, criollos and forasteros were hybridized as the Spanish tried to create breeds of cacao that produced larger amounts of pods while still retaining some of the criollo flavor.


Cacao treeToday, most of the world’s cacao beans are grown in Africa, ironically while much of the world’s coffee, an African crop, is grown in Latin America. Forastero beans account for about 95% of the global production of cacao, whereas the high-quality criollo beans are still mainly grown in Latin America, for instance in Venezuela. The hybrid form is called trinitario.

As McNeil says, “Most scholars believe that only the pulp, not the seeds, of T. cacao was consumed in pre-Columbian South America (A. M. Young 1994). The pulp, which also contains theobromine and caffeine, can be removed from the seeds and made into a fruit beverage or can be fermented to produce an alcoholic drink. It may seem surprising that the South American cultures discarded the stimulating seeds, which were so important in Mesoamerica. Nathaniel Bletter and Douglas Daly (this volume) suggest, however, that cacao seeds were not used in pre-Columbian South America because there were several other plant species containing higher levels of stimulating compounds that required far less processing.”
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These caffeinated substances were not available in Mesoamerica, and their absence may explain why cacao seeds became widely used in one area but not in the other. There are many steps involved in preparing cacao seeds for use in beverages, and “If other species provided stronger stimulants while requiring less time investment, it is not surprising that South Americans did not find the need to create a process for using the bitter seeds as well as the pulp. The less bitter flavor of criollo seeds may be a product of a process of selection for seeds more appealing to the palate.”

Cacao and maize constituted an important ritual pair in Mesoamerican cosmology. Both were combined in ritual beverages with sacred water to feed the gods and ancestors so that they would provide agricultural fertility. Maize, which is grown in open fields, was associated with light. Cacao may have been associated with darkness, death and the underworld because it is grown in shaded areas. In certain regions of Mexico until at least the twentieth century, people continued to provide the dead with cacao for the journey to the afterworld. It was also associated with blood, and was “sometimes mixed with blood and offered in rituals.”

According to McNeil, “Cacao was also associated with blood and sacrifice in the pre-Columbian period. For Mesoamerican peoples, blood was an important offering to the gods. Not only were animals sacrificed, but people — particularly elites and rulers — offered their own blood and that of human captives.”

We should remember that human sacrifice was unusually widespread among Mesoamerican cultures, the Aztecs in particular. The usage of cacao reflects this. Cacao beverages were sometimes colored red with achiote (also called annatto), and several colonial chroniclers noted the similarity between red-dyed cacao drink and blood. Cameron L. McNeil writes:

“The people of Cholula, Mexico, made a cacao beverage from water in which knives used in human sacrifice had been washed (Acosta 2002 [1590]:325). In the Florentine Codex, Sahagún (1950-82, Book 6, 1969:256) records that ‘heart’ and ‘blood’ were metaphors for ‘cacao…because it was precious.’ J. Eric S. Thompson (1956:100) proposed that hearts and cacao pods share associations, because both are ‘the repositories of precious liquids — blood and cacao.’ Rosemary Joyce has suggested that the frequent exchange of cacao in marriage ceremonies may signify the mixing of bloodlines (Meskell and Joyce 2003:139-140). A range of images supports the association of cacao with sacrifice and blood. A stela from the archaeological site of Santa Lucia Cotzumalhuapa on the Pacific Coast of Guatemala depicts a human figure sacrificing a cacao pod as though it were a human heart: the cacao pod spouts a liquid substance. In Mixtec codices, bleeding cacao pods are depicted both on the tops and insides of temples, which were places of sacrifice (Mary E. Smith 1973:236). In the sixteenth century, Diego García de Palacio wrote that in pre-Columbian times the Pipil people in Nicaragua marked war captives for sacrifice with strands of cacao seeds, feathers and green stones.”

Breakthroughs in the deciphering of Mayan glyphs have led to a renewed interest in the Mayan civilization during the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. According to scholar David Stuart, “The importance of cacao in Classic Maya society was not widely appreciated until the decipherment of glyphic texts on ceramics in the 1980s, when it became clear that seemingly countless ceramic vessels were inscribed with a dedicatory formula identifying them as drinking vessels for chocolate.” Now scholars readily see cacao as a key element of courtly life, having a profound role in political economics and display, feasting events and ritual. It even permeates many examples of Maya religious iconography.

Cacao — MayaAccording to Dorie Reents-Budet, “The ancient Maya developed a complex society renowned for its monumental architecture, colossal sculptures, and portable carvings that adorned their towns and the bodies of the elite; for scientific and intellectual achievements in mathematics, astronomy, philosophy; and for the only true writing system (that is, the graphic representation of spoken language) in the ancient Americas. During the Classical period apogee (A.D. 250-900) of the Maya culture, artisans created copious objects in a variety of media that were essential components of the sociopolitical and economic systems of the ruling elite (M. D. Coe and J. Kerr 1998). Among these artefacts were decorated pottery vessels for serving food, especially vessels for kakaw (chocolate) beverages (Reents-Budet 1994a). Unlike their ceramic predecessors of earlier centuries (1200 B.C.-A.D. 150), which were characterized by elegantly simple forms and monochrome or occasionally bichrome slip-painted surfaces, Classical period elite service wares were elaborately embellished with painted, incised, or modeled imagery or various combinations of these. Skilled painters adorned the service wares with renderings of elite life and portraits of powerful rulers. They also portrayed the supernatural beings and religious myths that explained the universe and the place of the Mayas therein.”

Moreover, “During Late Postclassical times and continuing into the Colonial period, kakaw beans functioned as an abstract representation of value; that is, as money. For example, in the markets of Tenochtitlan, the capital of the Aztec empire, the beans could be exchanged for any number of commodities. They also served as payment for work service and to buy one’s way out of forced labor (slavery) (S. D. Coe and M. D. Coe 1996: 98-99). Kakaw beans were the preferred payment for tax or service obligations because they were a readily convertible capital medium in most of the prevailing economic systems of the myriad cultures of Mesoamerica and also of those to the south in Central America.”

The Aztecs developed a tribute system based on the payment of cacao beans by conquered peoples. They also used the beans to create an alcoholic beverage. Most commonly, the kernel was ground and beaten with water, flavorings and usually maize to make a drink. In historical times, the pulp that surrounds the kernels inside the husk has been and is often fermented to produce an alcoholic beverage. The strongest evidence for the use of fermented cacao beverages comes from the Late Postclassic Mexica (Aztecs), as recorded by Bernardino de Sahagún. According to John S. Henderson and Rosemary A. Joyce, “The Nahuatl-speaking informants, describing the food consumed by the lords of Tenochtitlan, the Mexica capital, enumerated a wide range of cacao beverages, including some that recall the ‘tree fresh’ cacao of the Classic Maya and the honey-cacao identified as possibly a fermented drink.”

The only way a person could become intoxicated on new cacao would be by drinking the liquid of fermentation, which is otherwise a waste product. As Henderson and Joyce state, “The product of fermentation is a clear liquid (unlike the dense suspension of ground cacao) that is lighter in color than chocolate. References to ‘fresh’ cacao could mark the distinction between the primary fermented beverage and the secondary, unfermented chocolate. The fermented beverage would have to be consumed new, or fresh, as soon as it was produced, since it would continue to ferment and get sour.”

According to them, “among the forms of cacao consumption in the sixteenth century, there was at least one means of drinking cacao as a fermented, intoxicating beverage. It is impossible to produce the conventional form of chocolate without producing a fermented cacao drink as one stage in the process.” Moreover, “after the available sugars in the seeds and pulp are converted into alcohol, a second stage of fermentation starts, which converts alcohol to acetic acid. In order to recoup drinkable cacao chicha, fermentation could not be allowed to continue too long, or the product would be effectively undrinkable, cacao vinegar.”

Chocolate was also used as an aphrodisiac. According to scholar Manuel Aguilar-Moreno:

“Sahagún and numerous Colonial sources state that the drinking of chocolate was exclusive to the Aztec elite: the royal house, the lords and nobility, the long-distance traders (pochteca), and the warriors. Apparently, the only commoners who were privileged to consume this luxurious commodity were soldiers in battle, because cacao was considered to be a stimulant (S. D. Coe and M. D. Coe 1996:93). As an eyewitness to the Conquest, Bernal Díaz del Castillo, described a banquet given by the Emperor Motecuhzoma II, where: ‘they brought him some cups of fine gold, with a certain drink made of cacao, which they said was for success with women; but I saw that they brought more than 50 great jars of good cacao with its foam, and he drank of that; and the women served him drink very respectfully.’ (Díaz del Castillo 2002 [1568]:167). In this passage, Díaz makes a statement about the aphrodisiacal property of cacao, an idea that would be reinforced by the studies of Francisco Hernández, the royal physician and naturalist to Philip II of Spain. Hernández was in Mexico from 1572 to 1577 in search of medical plants to add to the European pharmacopoeia.”

How did the word “chocolate” come into being? According to Cameron L. McNeil, “The most commonly used ancient Maya term for cacao was kakaw. There has been some debate about the linguistic antecedent of these words. Lyle Campbell and Terrence Kaufman (1976) proposed that their origins lie in proto-Mije-Sokean and that this language was spoken by the Olmec of the southern Veracruz and the western Tabasco lowlands of Mexico. Karen Dakin and Søren Wichmann (2000) have presented arguments supporting a Uto-Aztecan origin for kakaw-tl, but Terrence Kaufman and John Justeson (this volume) refute the Dakin and Wichmann linguistic analysis with persuasive evidence for the previously proposed proto-Mije-Sokean source. The origin of the word chocolatl (the basis for ‘chocolate’) is almost as contentious and appears to have been a late development within Nahua, possibly as late as the sixteenth century (Kaufman and Justeson, this volume).”

Cacao IncaThe widely attested pre-Columbian term for “cacao” was kakaw. Scholars Terrence Kaufman and John Justeson claim that this term originated in the Gulf Coast of southern Mexico, among speakers of an early Mije-Sokean language, and spread across Mesoamerica, but did not reach South America in pre-Columbian times. The Olmecs (which meant “rubber people” to the Aztecs), one of the earliest significant cultures in Mesoamerica (and sometimes labeled the “mother culture” of Mayans and others, although this is now disputed) are believed to have spoke a language ancestral to the Mije-Sokean languages.

Mije-Sokean vocabulary is found in languages across Mesoamerica. “No other language families in Meso-America had anything like the impact that Mije-Sokean had, either in the range of linguistic families they affected or in the number of items that were borrowed from them.” As they see it, “Some of the Mije-Sokean loans probably go back to the influence of the Olmecs, while others are attributable to a post-Olmec era of Mije-Sokean influence. The widespread and early diffusion of the word kakaw (a) into a large number of Meso-American languages and language families fits the profile of these typical Mije-Sokean loans. In addition, one of the prime areas of cacao cultivation, in the lowlands of Tabasco, was part of the (Mije-Sokean-speaking) Olmec heartland, where Gulf Sokean languages are still spoken.”

According to Kaufman and Justeson, “Aztecs, and arguably Teotihuacanos and other pre-Columbian societies, made strong efforts to control the production and distribution of cacao. The kernel came to be used as currency, reflected, for example, by Xinxa / tuwa/, meaning both ‘cacao’ and ‘money.’“

They also state that “Traditionally, words for drinks made from cacao appear to have consisted either of the word for cacao itself or of that word together with modifiers. Other terms, not including the word for ‘cacao,’ but including a word meaning ‘water, liquid’ or a word meaning ‘(a) drink,’ are known from Colonial and modern sources in various Meso-American languages. Among these is a Nawa word, attested variously as chikol=a:-tl and chokol=a:-tl, which spread to several European languages and then around the world. This term may have been coined during the sixteenth century. Contrary to persistent but uninformed speculation, Mayan languages played no role in the development of this term.”

Regarding the origins of the word “chocolate,” they demonstrate that the earliest Spanish sources all used the word “cacao” to refer to the drink made from cacao beans. They didn’t use the term “chocolate” at all:

Chocolate-makingThe first occurrence of the Spanish word chocolate is in Book 4, Chapter 22, of Historia natural y moral de las Indias, which was published in 1590 by Joseph (José) de Acosta. The above evidence also shows that in the Spanish spoken in Central Mexico, chocolate was called cacao until well into the seventeenth century, and we know of no evidence of the word chocolate or chicolate being used there at this time. José de Acosta, however, who lived in both Mexico and Peru, was using the word chocolate by 1590; we must suppose that his usage in Spanish was simply different, for reasons which we are not at the moment able to determine, though his place of writing, his place of origin, and his social group affiliation are all possibly relevant.


Kaufman and Justeson suggest that “the words chikola:tl and chokola:tl may not have existed in pre-Columbian times.” The word “chocolate” existed by late the sixteenth century, but nobody knows for sure how it came into being in Spanish, and from there spread to other European languages. They conclude that there are “serious gaps” in our knowledge here.

According to Cameron L. McNeil, “In many regions of Mesoamerica, cacao use has significantly diminished since the Colonial period. In those areas where cacao is still used, there is sometimes a continuity with pre-Columbian and early Colonial practices. Ethnographers document the role of cacao in ritual life as an offering not only to ancestors but also to the Chacs (rain gods), the gods of the mountains (sometimes ancestor deities), and the Earth Goddess, as well as to the saints and to Christ, who are often barely disguised representatives of pre-Conquest deities.”

Cacao is still used as a gift for major life passage events: “When the author asked people in various regions of Guatemala when they used cacao, the most common answers were: for holidays, for childbirth and for breast-feeding mothers, as a gift that men offer to the family of a woman whose hand they wish to request in marriage, and for Easter. Cacao seeds were formerly an important item of exchange, akin to, but not the same as a currency (Millon 1955a). This use, as well as the importance of cacao in elite rituals, has connected it to concepts of wealth and power.”

As Patricia A. McAnany and Satoru Murata state: “Belizean chocolate — the moniker does not carry the same cachet as Swiss or Belgian chocolate, does it? Although the heavily marketed European brands have gained global prestige and name recognition, the nations of reference are far away from the tropical climes in which cacao is grown today and was grown in the past. Contemporary name-tagging of chocolate is linked to processing techniques and packaging locales rather than to centers of cultivation.” However, “Belizean chocolate, sold under the sobriquet of Maya Gold, is enjoying modest recognition today under a fair trade agreement negotiated between a British candy company and Maya cacao-growers of southern Belize.”

Cacao farming has been undertaken in the region from Middle Preclassic to contemporary times (perhaps 800 B.C. to present):

“Long after European cacao processing — including the addition of sugar and the production of ‘solid’ chocolate — had become the norm, the traditional mode of cacao consumption among Toledo Maya maintained a strong degree of pre-Columbian continuity in the form of liquid cacao drinks. Preparation of the drink by the Mopan Maya as documented by J. E. S. Thompson (1930) entailed shelling, fermentation, and then drying the cacao beans on a piece of bark. The beans were then roasted on a pottery comal (or sok) and ground on a stone metate. The ground cacao was next mixed with maize flour and soaked in water, after which the mixture was reground on the metate. Finally, the mixture was placed on the fire, boiled, and served after the addition of ‘a considerable quantity of black pepper’ (J. E. S. Thompson 1930:186). Thompson considered black pepper to be a modern substitute for chile.”


There is thus some continuity, but gradual change has come with the addition of sugar and pressure from alternative beverages such as coffee. Despite decline in cacao consumption due to the disruption of traditional societies, traditional practices are carried on in some regions. Religious syncretism is also quite common, with older ideas continuing under nominally Christian forms.

Cacao may have been used in certain combinations with foodstuff, but it was primarily used in liquid form. The Florentine Codex describes the variety of chocolate beverages offered to Mexica Aztec rulers, including green cacao-pods, honeyed chocolate, flowered chocolate, chocolate flavored with vanilla and bright red chocolate. Cacao was highly prized for its foam. Early colonial writers describe how it was produced by pouring the beverage from one container to another to agitate it or by mixing it with a specially constructed stick, but they may have missed a key ingredient of the frothy beverage.

Among the products usually added to cacao beverages were flowers which taste spicy like black pepper, vanilla, and a relative of black pepper. Because of its bitter, astringent flavor, it took time for the Spanish and other Europeans to develop a taste for chocolate. The Europeans added sugar and milk to counteract the natural bitterness and removed the chilli pepper and similar ingredients. One indigenous American spice they did continue to use was vanilla.

The Little Book of Chocolate by Katherine Khodorowsky and Herve Robert is not intended to be as scholarly as the above mentioned book about chocolate in Mesoamerica, but it is reasonably accurate and will be widely quoted regarding the history of chocolate in Europe.

A chocolate partyChristopher Columbus brought some cocoa beans to Ferdinand and Isabella of Spain, but the drink didn’t catch on immediately. In 1585 the first shipment of cocoa beans arrived in the Iberian Peninsula from New Spain. The Spanish tried to guard the secret of cacao, but it eventually spread to the rest of Europe. In the beginning it was a drink for kings, nobilities and elites, as it had been in Mesoamerica, which added to its prestige and status. Cacao beans gradually spread across Europe in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. In France, they owed their official introduction to Anne of Austria, daughter of Philip III of Spain, who married Louis XIII in 1615. The interest for chocolate at the French court increased in strength at the Versailles under the “Sun King” Louis XIV, and later under Louis XV. Some very fine top-quality chocolate is still being produced in France, for instance Valrhona, a manufacturer near Lyon founded in 1924 by a pastry chef from the Rhône valley.

Pepper and chilli were replaced in Europe by vanilla (an indigenous American plant that was used in combination with cacao also in Mesoamerica) and spices such as cinnamon or other additions — milk, wine or even beer. Cacao drinks still didn’t much resemble chocolate as we think of it today. The drinking of chocolate was introduced to Italy in 1606 by a Florentine merchant returning from Spain, Antonio Carletti. According to Khodorowsky and Robert:

The simplest of his recipes contained cocoa, sugar, vanilla and cinnamon. Members of the Italian aristocracy, however, like their French counterparts, enjoyed experimenting with unusual flavorings, including citron and lemon, musk and ambergris and, at the court of the Medicis, jasmine. Antonio Ari was the first cioccolatiere to put the drink on sale in Turin, which by the seventeenth century had become the Italian chocolate capital, a distinction which it retains to this day. Eighteenth-century Turin saw the invention of chocolate bavareisa, or mousse, and above all of the delectable bicerin, a drink prepared with equal parts of coffee, chocolate and cream, which delighted Alexandre Dumas in 1852. The name is derived from the charming small glasses or bicerin in which it is still served today. Turin was also the birthplace in 1861 of the gianduja, invented by Caffarel: these ingot-shaped chocolates, with their meltingly smooth mixture of finely ground hazelnuts, walnuts and almonds, sugar and chocolate, are now famous throughout the world.


The most popular Italian chocolate worldwide today is the small, praline-filled Ferrero Rocher, but they are also famous for the small squares of chocolate known as neapolitans, which are enjoyed with cups of coffee across the Western world. The Italians played a prominent role in the early history of chocolate inEurope. As Khodorowsky and Robert say:

Sacher TorteDrinking chocolate arrived in Austria via Italy in about 1640. Monks who discovered a taste for the beverage ensured its spread throughout the Holy Roman Empire, notably in what is today Germany. On his return from Spain in 1713, Charles VI introduced it to his court in Vienna. From this grew the firmly established Viennese tradition of serving cups of rich chocolate flavoured with sugar and vanilla and topped with a cloud of whipped cream (Schlagsahne) sprinkled with cacao powder. The beverage also became popular in Germany. But it was in the realm of pâtisserie that the Austrians surpassed themselves, producing the first recipe for a cake made with chocolate in 1778, and thus opening up a whole world of inspiration which has yet to be exhausted. In 1832, in response to Prince Klemens von Metternich’s request for a ‘dense, compact and masculine’ dessert, his chief pâtissier, Franz Sacher, produced a rich chocolate cake sandwiched with a fine layer of apricot jelly and covered with chocolate fondant icing. Known henceforth as Sacher Torte, it was to become a classic throughout the world.


Another masterpiece of Austrian cuisine, Imperial Torte, alternates fine layers of milk chocolate and almond paste. A German classic is Black Forest gateau, a confection of chocolate, whipped cream, cherries and kirsch.

According to Khodorowsky and Robert: “The vogue for drinking chocolate, already established in Spain, reached the British Isles thanks to a Frenchman, who in 1657 opened the first chocolate factory in London. Unlike in France, where it was a pleasure strictly limited to the aristocracy, this ‘excellent West Indian drink’ was made available to the middle classes from the outset. Soon, alongside the coffee houses which made their appearance from 1652, there opened the first chocolate houses. London was also the setting, in 1674, for a historic invention: solid chocolate, presented in the form of ‘Spanish rolls’ or pastilles, and sold by the Coffee Mill and Tobacco Roll shop.”

The drinking of chocolate had to compete with tea, introduced from East Asia, and coffee introduced from the Middle East at about the same time. Britain, then in the process of changing human history through the Industrial Revolution, made significant contributions to the development of chocolate:

The British were also responsible, in 1728, for the first factory equipped with hydraulic machinery, for the first clubs exclusively for devotees of chocolate, and above all for the development of the chocolate bar (although this attribution is disputed by the Italians), created by the Bristol firm of J. S. Fry and Sons in 1847. But the symbolic father of British chocolate is undoubtedly John Cadbury (1801-1889). In 1824, Cadbury opened his first coffee, tea and chocolate shop. In 1831 he started manufacturing chocolate, and following his Quaker conscience and the example of the great French chocolate-manufacturer Menier in caring for the social conditions of his workers, he created a model town for his employees in the Birmingham suburb of Bournville.


Wikipedia, in its entry on the history of chocolate, credits the Frenchman Doret with inventing a machine to crush cacao beans and mix and blend the chocolate paste: “At the end of the 18th century, the first form of solid chocolate was invented in Turin by Doret. This chocolate was sold in large quantities from 1826 by Pierre Paul Caffarel. In 1819, F. L. Cailler opened the first Swiss chocolate factory. In 1828, Dutchman Coenraad Johannes van Houten patented a method for extracting the fat from cocoa beans and making powdered cocoa and cocoa butter. Van Houten also developed the so-called Dutch process of treating chocolate with alkali to remove the bitter taste. This made it possible to form the modern chocolate bar. It is believed that the Englishman Joseph Fry made the first chocolate for eating in 1847, followed in 1849 by the Cadbury brothers.”

As mentioned above, an extremely important achievement in the development of modern chocolate was made in the Netherlands, when the Amsterdam chocolate maker Coenraad Johannes van Houten (or his father Casparus van Houten Sr., the sources differ on this) in 1828 patented an inexpensive method of making cacao powder. He wanted to improve the quality of drinking chocolate, which was still by far the most important way of using cacao beans even though a paste version was available, but his invention made solid chocolate much more feasible. The use of chocolate gradually spread to cover most regions of Europe. The Russian poet Alexander Pushkin allegedly drank a cup of chocolate in St Petersburg just before his fatal duel in 1837.

The Spanish encouraged plantations of cacao beans in their colonies in Latin America. In the seventeenth century, the British managed to acclimatize the cacao tree in Jamaica, as did the French in Martinique and the Dutch in Surinam. Not until the nineteenth century did the tree cross the Atlantic, first to the island of São Tomé, initially a Portuguese colony, later to West Africa. The Dutch in the late nineteenth century introduced the tree to Southeast Asia, to Java and Sumatra where they also introduced the coffee shrub.

In the sixteenth century, the Spanish king was the most powerful man not only in the Americas, but also within Europe. The Spanish ruled much of the European continent, including present-day Belgium and the Netherlands. As Khodorowsky and Robert say:

For two centuries, Flanders was part of the immense Spanish empire. As early as the sixteenth century, it thus became one of the first European countries to taste the new cocoa-based drink. In the late seventeenth century, the first chocolate factories were established in Brussels. It was to Jean Neuhaus, chocolatier in the exclusive Galerie de la Reine shopping arcade, that Belgium owed the invention of the praline chocolate, in 1912, and of the protective cardboard packaging, the ballotin, in 1915. Belgian praline chocolates are generally molded: the liquid chocolate is poured into a mold to form a shell, and when this has been filled, the base is sealed with a layer of chocolate.


Among the innumerable varieties available are praline in a milk chocolate shell, crème fraiche or butter in dark chocolate shell, known as fondant; marzipan in chocolate fondant; and, most celebrated of all, the Manon. Garnished with a walnut and crème fraiche or butter, the Manon is encased in white chocolate or fondant sugar icing and is sometimes flavored with coffee. Belgian praline chocolate is now made in large quantities. Most of it is exported from major companies such as Leonidas, Godiva, Neuhas and Guylian.

Although the fact that Belgium became an important center for chocolate can perhaps be attributed to her historical connections to Spain, the success of her Swiss rivals is more difficult to explain. After all, the Swiss were never under Spanish rule, did not have any colonies and do not even have access to the sea. Switzerland was a relative latecomer to chocolate making, as it was to the making of clocks and watches, but the country created both technical advances and new recipes, with the invention of chocolate with hazelnuts, milk chocolate and fondant chocolate.

Heinrich Escher, the mayor of Zurich, first introduced chocolate to Switzerland after a stay in Brussels in 1697. It was discreetly consumed for some time, but the Zurich Council banned it in 1722. Chocolate had a reputation as an aphrodisiac, as it once had among the Aztecs in pre-Columbian Mesoamerica, and concerned citizens were afraid that chocolate could be put to improper uses, such as seducing women. Nevertheless, despite initial resistance, the first chocolate manufacture was set up around 1750 by two Italians near Bern, and the first chocolate shop in Switzerland opened in Bern in 1792. During the course of the nineteenth century, the country was to become an important center for chocolate making in its own right.

François-Louis Cailler, inspired by chocolate makers in Turin, Italy, created a smooth chocolate that could be formed into bars and opened a chocolate factory near Vevey in 1819. His success inspired others in Switzerland, such as Charles-Amédée Kohler, who mixed chocolate with hazelnuts and opened a factory in Lausanne in 1830. Heinrich Nestle, the founder of Nestlé S.A. which is today the world’s largest food and beverage company, was born in Frankfurt on Main in Germany, but changed his name to Henri Nestlé after moving to Switzerland. He was to become one of the inventors of milk chocolate.

According to Khodorowsky and Robert: “In 1875, Daniel Peter (1836-1919), son-in-law of François-Louis Cailler, adapted the process for condensing milk discovered by the chemist Henri Nestlé (1814-1890): thus milk chocolate was born, earning worldwide fame for Switzerland. Soon, theSocieté Suisse de Chocolats, founded in 1904, was to unite the four great names of Callier, Kohler, Peter and Nestlé. ButSwitzerland’s most remarkable commercial success most be Philippe Suchard’s Milka bar, launched in 1901 and still for many the chief symbol of Swiss chocolate; Suchard remains the best-known brand of Swiss chocolate inEurope. Another great figure, Rudolphe Lindt (1823-1893), was the father of fondant chocolate. According to the website Swissworld.org, “Suchard did not enjoy instant success; chocolate was expensive and regarded by many people as suspiciously exotic, and orders were slow at first. But by a strange quirk of history Neuchâtel was not only a Swiss canton, it simultaneously also belonged to the far-away King of Prussia, and in 1842 Suchard received an order for his chocolate from the royal court in Berlin. The factory eventually took off, and was soon marketing its output abroad as well as inSwitzerland. Suchard chocolate won gold medals at theLondon’s Great Exhibition of 1851 and the Paris Universal Exhibition of 1855. In 1880 Suchard was the first Swiss chocolate maker to set up a factory abroad, in Lörrach inGermany, just over the border from Basel. By the early 1880s the Suchard company was producing about half the total national output of chocolate, and employing about half the total number of people working in the industry.”

ChocolateIn 1908, the Swiss Jean Tobler invented Toblerone, a chocolate bar with almond-and-honey nougat, molded in triangular sections recalling the mountains of his native land. Ironically, a Swiss family also contributed to the fame of Belgian chocolate. In 1857 Jean Neuhaus from Neuchâtel in Switzerland settled in Brussels. As a pharmacist, he did sell some chocolate (which was still viewed as medicine by many at that point), and his son Frédéric persuaded his father to move into confectionery. His grandson (also named Jean Neuhaus) in 1912 invented the bite-sized chocolate which he called praline, and registered a patent for a cardboard container for loose chocolates, the ballotin. Swiss and Belgian chocolate remain important export goods in the twenty-first century, but per capita consumption of chocolate is also high domestically in both Switzerland and Belgium.

The process of “democratization” of chocolate, initially a luxury good available only to the elites, was set in motion in the nineteenth century and accelerated during the twentieth century. Chocolate was made a standard component of army rations in Europe and North America during the First and Second World Wars. In hindsight, the use of cacao beans in the modern world is so different from the one we encountered in pre-Columbian America that it’s easy to forget that we are talking about the same substance.

I have seen suggestions that cacao was used in combination with certain types of foodstuff in Mesoamerica, but there can be no doubt that to pre-Columbian Americans it was first and foremost a drink, which it remained for some time when it was transplanted to Europe. Chocolate bars and other forms of chocolate in solid form are almost entirely a European invention. I admit I prefer buying a Toblerone, Milka bar or box of Belgian praline chocolate over the Aztec custom of mixing cacao beans with the blood of freshly killed victims of human sacrifice. I’m sure this will be viewed by some as culturally insensitive, but I think I can live with that.

World Of Chocolate.

A Flowery Find That Left Us in the Dust

A Flowery Find That Left Us in the Dust

(By Julia Ewan -- The Washington Post)
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By Jason Wilson
Wednesday, April 2, 2008; Page F05

My brother Tyler and I sometimes play a game we call Liquor Store Archaeology. The aim is to make a pith-helmeted visit to older, neglected liquor stores, the sort of family-owned shops that perhaps were once prosperous and now do business mainly in pint-size flasks or liters of cheap wine or beer by the can. Inside, we scour the dark bottom shelves and dank back corners of the place, looking for forgotten bottles of spirits that have been languishing, perhaps for decades.
This Story

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Spirits: A Flowery Find That Left Us in the Dust
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Recipe: Blue Moon Cocktail

More often than not, we indeed turn up something rare or just plain strange. Our finds span the world: caraway-flavored kummel from Germany, an Armenian brandy called Ararat, eaux de vie with all manner of fruit floating in them, a wasabi-flavored liqueur, even a honey liqueur bottled with a real honeycomb.

It has become rather competitive. I thought I had taken the lead with something called Panache, a sweet aperitif wine with a 1970s-looking label that was made by Domaine Chandon but now is impossible to find. Then Tyler countered with a wonderful liqueur from Sicily made from mandarin peels, called Mandarino del Castello, about which we can find no information.

I figured I'd won when I'd unearthed a bottle of Cordial Campari. Though made by the same company, Cordial Campari is not to be confused with the more famous Italian red aperitivo; Cordial Campari is a clear, sambuca-like after-dinner digestivo. I'd heard tales of Cordial Campari and seen it in a few old-man bars in Italy. But it has not been widely available in the United States, and my bottle is probably decades old. It may once have been valuable, but probably not anymore -- mainly because my friends and I broke into the bottle during the holidays, and it's now sitting half-empty in my cabinet.

So Tyler became the clear victor not too long ago when he turned up something called, somewhat disturbingly, Peanut Lolita, a thick, peanut-flavored liqueur that once was produced by Continental Distilling in Linfield, Pa. The logo and fonts on the label suggest the early 1960s, but according to what little research exists, Peanut Lolita was still around in the mid-1970s, when infamous presidential brother Billy Carter "often made drunken appearances" with the liqueur's spokesmodel, according to an essay by Christopher S. Kelley in "Life in the White House: A Social History of the First Family and the President's House" (SUNY Press, 2004).

We may now own the only two bottles of Peanut Lolita left in existence. Due to the liqueur's overwhelming whiskey-and-peanut taste and grainy texture -- not to mention its unfortunate name -- it is unlikely to make a comeback anytime soon. But Tyler has created a respectable drink with the stuff: He layers ice-cold Peanut Lolita and raspberry-flavored Chambord in a cordial glass and calls it a PB&J.

For a while, the holy grail of our archaeology has been Creme Yvette, a purple-colored, violet-and-vanilla-flavored liqueur originally made by Sheffield in Connecticut and then by Charles Jacquin et Cie in Philadelphia. Nearly all mid-century bartending guides suggest that Creme Yvette was part of any well-stocked bar, and it was essential in classic cocktails such as the Blue Moon. But in the 1960s, it disappeared.

Creme Yvette is a variation on the traditional creme de violette liqueurs found in Europe, and the closest Tyler and I had come to tasting it was when friends brought home versions from France (Benoit Violette Liqueur) and the Netherlands (Bols' Parfait Amour).

That is, until last summer, when I finally had a taste of real Creme Yvette in New Orleans at the Tales of the Cocktail conference during a session on rare and obscure spirits. Rob Cooper of Charles Jacquin generously served tastes to everyone who attended, poured from one of two bottles left in existence. To judge from the reaction of many of the cocktail geeks in the room, you'd think it was a life-altering experience. Cooper suggested that if he had anything to do with it, Creme Yvette would soon be back on the U.S. market.

One importer has beaten him to the punch. Eric Seed, who owns the Minnesota-based Haus Alpenz, has brought in a delicious creme de violette liqueur made by Austrian distillers Rothman & Winter. This creme de violette is more floral, with less vanilla, than the others I've tried.

It's not the first time Seed has unearthed some long-lost spirit. In Indonesia, he rediscovered Batavia Arrack, a spicy rum cousin that was a standard in pre-Prohibition punches. In the Austrian Alps, he found Zirbenz, a liqueur made from the fruit of the native stone pine. And from Barbados, he began importing falernum, a spirit that until now I've had to manufacture myself if I wanted any (see recipe here).

Though recently called "the Indiana Jones of lost spirits" by Food + Wine, Seed is actually more cerebral and mild-mannered than he is swashbuckling. His hunts often begin at the request of high-end bartending clients, including those at Central and Cork in D.C. When asked what motivates his quests, Seeds says simply, "The customers I sell to, they take a very dim view of vodka."

Needless to say, Seed wins Liquor Store Archaeology in a landslide.

The Weird and Wild Flavors of BeanBoozled Jelly Belly

Some years after Jelly Belly released the Bertie Bott’s Jelly Bean (inspired by the Harry Potter book series), they came out with these weirdly and wildly flavored jelly beans, BeanBoozled.

Candy Addict blog reviewed some of the flavors:

Pencil Shavings: Oddly enough, these did have a woody essence to them, with notes of plastic and rubber. I’d say it wasn’t horrible, yet it wasn’t tasty either. Just interesting.

Baby Wipes: (from Brian) Wow - these taste just like baby wipes smell. You can’t truly appreciate these unless you have had kids. Brings back many unpleasant diaper memories.

Tea

According to legend, tea was first discovered when (get ready for vagaries) some leaves happened to fall into a boiling pot and were found to have a tasty and aromatic effect. Sounds a bit suspicious to me, but here are some actual facts and figures regarding this important beverage of my Southern upbringing, tea.

• There are three basic kinds of tea—Green, Oolong, and Black. In the U.S., 94% of tea consumed is Black, with Green coming in at a paltry 5% (as opposed to 80% Black and 19% Green worldwide). A fourth and more rare type of tea, White tea, is a Chinese tea produced exclusively from the buds or tips of the tea bush.

• Most countries have their own tales of origin regarding tea, but as far as American consumption goes, the Cambridge World History of Food tells us “One great change in American tea drinking came about in the early twentieth century. In 1908, tea merchant Thomas Sullivan, in order to reduce shipping weight, began to package tea samples in silk bags instead of miniature tins. Some of his customers brewed the tea without taking it out of the bags and requested more tea packaged in this way; Sullivan obliged, and teabags were created. Today, in America, most tea is brewed from teabags.”

• More recently, teabags have been seen in the shape of a pyramid. Tea’s Got a Brand New Bag

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By FLORENCE FABRICANT
Published: September 13, 2006

THE tea bag, a clever enough idea at first, went terribly awry somewhere along the way, at least in the view of people who love to savor their tea. Now it is in the process of large-scale reinvention, and some of those who currently shun it with almost ostentatious disdain are very likely to be won over.
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Tony Cenicola/The New York Times

Garret Lown for The New York Times

CHANGE IS BREWING Harney & Sons’s pyramid-shape pouches hold longer tea leaves.

At age 100 or so, the old bag is increasingly being filled with fine whole leaf tea, the kind connoisseurs brew in their teapots, and the bag itself has been redesigned in shapes that are not only elegant but constructed to allow those flavorful leaves to show what they’ve got.

With tea sales in the United States now four times what they were a decade ago — about $6.2 billion annually, according to the Tea Association of the USA, a trade group — the American tea drinker seems ready for a change for the better.

The change, some say, is overdue. Look closely at a conventional tea bag in your cupboard or in the paper cup from the local deli. Chances are that instead of leaves it is filled with indistinguishable bits, the detritus left after tea leaves are sifted and graded. The tea industry calls it dust, and the beverage it makes is likely to be rusty-looking and often bitterly tannic. But it no longer has to be, nor is it necessary to brew a whole pot of tea to achieve something better tasting.

Perhaps the surest sign that the tea world is changing is this: Lipton, the world’s largest tea company and a division of Unilever, will start selling tea bags containing long leaf teas in supermarkets nationwide next month.

Instead of paper, the leaves will be enveloped by nylon mesh bags in a delicate pyramid shape.

Lipton is following the lead of American businesses like Harney & Sons, Mighty Leaf, Adagio and the Highland Tea Company, which for several years have sold tea bags filled with high-quality full-leaf teas, ones with complex, often floral, herbaceous, spicy or fruity nuances.

Smelling a trend, new companies, like Revolution Tea, Numi Tea, Two Leaves and a Bud, and Tea Forté, have formed expressly to sell fine teas in tea bags. Harrisons & Crosfield, from England, and the luxury Parisian tea purveyors Le Palais des Thés and Mariage Frères have also introduced tea bags.

“We decided to put some of our teas in tea bags because that’s the way most people drink tea,” said Wanja Michuki, the president of the Highland Tea Company, in Montclair, N.J., which sells fine teas from Kenya, the leading exporter of tea worldwide.

James Wong, a Unilever vice president and general manager of Lipton, in Englewood Cliffs, N.J., said the company’s research showed that “every consumer is becoming a gourmand.’’

“They want long leaf tea, but they can be intimidated by buying and brewing it,” he said. “We saw an opportunity to simplify it, making it convenient and accessible, and it’s appealing to new consumers as well as tea lovers.”

Lipton’s new line, called Pyramid, took the company two years to develop. It offers six varieties of long leaf tea, all but one flavored with bits of dried fruit or other seasonings. Only Black Pearl, a black tea blend, is unflavored.

“Consumers have reacted positively to the flavorings,” said John Cheetham, Lipton’s Royal Estates tea master, who selects and blends teas. “And we have Black Pearl to appeal to the purist.”

Even the best tea companies have introduced flavored teas in response to consumer demand, but over the years their reputations have been based on the quality of their oolongs, Darjeelings and senchas.

Mr. Cheetham acknowledged that Lipton’s flavored varieties were “entry level” teas. And they are a far cry from Harney & Sons’s Dragon Pearl Jasmine or Mighty Leaf’s Darjeeling Choice Estate, which are sold in bags that cost 30 cents to $2 each and available at tea shops, fancy food shops and online. Lipton’s Pyramid teas, at $3.49 for 20 tea bags, cost less than 20 cents a cup. Ordinary tea bags average 2 to 8 cents a cup.

“Lipton’s Pyramid will bring premium tea to the masses,” Mr. Cheetham said.

That is the very attitude that drove the company’s founder, Thomas Lipton, an English tea merchant. By buying his own tea estates in the late 1800’s, he made tea, which had been an aristocratic beverage, more affordable and popular. Thomas Sullivan, the New York tea merchant who is credited with inventing the tea bag about 100 years ago, used the bags at first to send samples to his customers. The idea caught on, and by the 1920’s the tea bag was commercially established.

But companies began compromising quality, and before long the little paper pouches were filled with the lowest grades of tea. Consumers did not object. In fact, they liked the fact that the minute particles in tea bags required but a few seconds in hot water to produce deeply colored, strong flavored liquid.

In 1929 Lipton began packing tea in paper tea bags. In 1954 the company introduced its patented double-wall tea bag, which exposed more of the tea to the hot water and took even less time to brew.

Brewing tea from fine tea leaves takes longer, as much as five minutes, for the infusion to develop. And the leaves themselves require more space to unfurl, which is why the better teas are put in pyramid-shape bags, or larger pouches, often made of silk, muslin or nylon mesh (and some hand-sewn). You can see the leaves swell as they come in contact with the hot water.

Like coffee lovers who moved up from making instant coffee to grinding their own estate-grown beans fresh for each cup, many American tea drinkers have graduated to whole leaf teas. Though there are myriad gadgets on the market, like little metal infusers, for brewing a single cup from whole tea leaves, they do not eliminate the chore of cleaning up the soggy remains. Recognizing the demand for convenience, Ito En, a Japanese tea company that has a store on Madison Avenue, has introduced fine nylon mesh bags, $1 each, that can be filled with a cup’s worth of tea, brewed and discarded.

Somewhat surprisingly, English tea companies appear to be the slowest to catch on to the trend of fine tea in tea bags. The English often drink tea with milk and sugar, so they like it dark and strong, just the way cheap tea bags make it. “The English consumer is less adventurous than the American,” Mr. Cheetham said.

Until recently, Americans considered the English to be the standard-bearers for proper tea drinking. But the influence of Japan, which was a bigger supplier of tea to the American market before World War II, has grown in recent years. Many Americans got their first taste of green tea at a sushi bar and have come to appreciate its refined delicacy and earthiness. Since 1998 sales of green tea have increased at a faster rate in America than any other kind of loose or bagged tea.

Joseph P. Simrany, the president of the Tea Association of the USA, which is based in Manhattan, said tea sales are projected to grow 10 percent a year for “the foreseeable future,” fueled in part by ready-to-drink bottled iced tea and by an increasing belief that tea, especially green tea, is healthful. Tea bag sales are lumped in with figures for loose teas, so there are no statistics for the growth of the tea bag segment of the market. But, Mr. Simrany said, “the new tea bags are changing consumer attitudes toward tea; the snobbism is gone.”

And even though the better tea bags will produce an excellent cup of tea, some of the finer points of tea making have been lost, like the different water temperatures and steeping times required, depending on whether the tea is black, oolong or green. An exception is the tea made by Le Palais des Thés: a suggested temperature and brewing time is printed on the foil packets that contain the muslin tea bags. But how many tea drinkers pay attention to those arcane details anyway?

“People like good tea but not the work,” said Michael Harney, a vice president of Harney & Sons, in Millerton, N.Y., a company that his father, John, founded. “We see our customers switching from loose tea to sachets all the time now.”
However, if you like brewing your tea loose leaf, you should consider learning how to read your tea leaves. Reading Tea Leaves

GYPSY'S SECRET… The Tea Reading


RITUAL
Put a pinch of tealeaves in the cup and pour boiling water over them, allowing it to stand about three minutes. Drink the contents of the cup leaving tealeaves and a very small amount of liquid in the bottom.


The person whose fortune is to be told, call the "sitter" or "consultant", should then take the cup by the handle in the left hand, rim upwards, and move it in a circle rapidly three times from left to right some of the tea leaves will seem to cling to the sides of the cup while others remain in the bottom. Next slowly invert the cup over the saucer and leave it there until all liquid drains away.

The "sitter" should approach the oracle in all seriousness and during the ritual should concentrate on his or her future destiny and "wish" that the symbol shall correctly represent happenings to come.

The handle of the cup represents the "sitter" in his or her own "sphere" or "residence" and is the "south" point of the compass. This fixed point designates "letters to" the consultant or "journeys away from", "visitors to be expected", distance "to and from", etc.

The cup is divided into three parts. The rim designates the present; the side, events not far distant; and the bottom the distant future. The nearer the symbols appear to the handle the nearer to fulfillment will be the events foretold.
TELLING FORTUNES

Now the "seer" receives the cup from the "sitter" and proceeds to tell "his" or "her" fortune, unless of course one is to tell one's own fortune. The "seer" should concentrate upon the cup and upon the "consultant". The "seer" will observe that the tealeaves are scattered over the cup in apparent confusion but it will be noted after concentration that they form lines, circles, dots, small groups and figures.

Note carefully the shapes and figures assumed by the leaves. Turn the cup and view from different angles until the symbols become clear. Be patient and search carefully for symbols and not their position. The more you search the clearer they become. Note the resemblance to various objects, and their relation to each other. Sometimes bad omens will be offset by good ones; good ones may be strengthened or weakened by others, good or evil, and so on.

"The tea cup reveals good fortune (1,4,5) for you. I see a lover (3) and much success. I see the letter "L"- perhaps his name begins with "L" but you have not met him yet because he seems to be in the future - not far distant perhaps but not in the present. I see success is about to crown some venture you have undertaken or are about to undertake. But there seems to be difficulties closing in upon (2) you in the near future".

"Fear not in this tea cup good fortune more than outweighs the bad. I see a marriage, possibly you own (4) or a friend's. It seems certain that this good fortune that is coming will be most unexpected".

Such objects as cats, trees, flowers, letters, numbers, etc., will be discerned by the exercise of the "seer's" observation and imagination. Possibly these may be unconsciously strengthened by a keen intuition. Each symbol possesses some significance. They may be large or small and their size may determine their relative importance. For instance: if the likeness of a "Septre" should be observed it would mean that the "sitter" should expect some honor bestowed upon him or her. If the symbol were small, the honor received would be small and if the symbol were large, the honor might be great.

Then again: a few tea leaves may form a group that might in turn form a letter such as "M". If this letter "M" should be close to a symbol resembling a "serpent" which is bad luck, it might mean that the "sitter" should guard against an enemy whose name begins with "M". If on the other hand the letter "M" should appear near a symbol of a bird flying towards the handle of the cup (the "residence") it might mean that the sitter would receive a letter from, or news of, a person whose name begins with "M". If on the other hand the letter "M" should appear near a symbol of a bird flying towards the handle of the cup (the "residence") it might mean that the sitter would receive a letter from, or news of, a person whose name begins with "M". Again: If the bird were flying away from the "residence", the sitter would be sending a letter to the person "M".

The small tealeaves frequently form lines. A line means a journey, a long line a long journey, etc. The direction of the journey may be determined by the direction of the line. If a line should approach and reach the handle and the sitter should be away from home it would mean that he or she would return. If the line should end before it reaches the handle it would mean that the "sitter" would move to another residence. A wavy or broken line means delayed journeys and straight-line quick journeys. If a number such as "6" should be observed it would mean a journey of six days or six weeks; or possibly a journey to be taken in six weeks, etc., etc.

Dots surrounding a symbol indicate money in some form depending on the symbol. Should a leaf cling to the edge or rim of the cup some event foretold by the symbols in the cup is imminent. Someone may be thinking of the "sitter" at the very moment. Look for a letter to find a clue to the identity of this person.

Observe the complete picture as a whole as well as individual symbols for often-bad omens may outweigh good omens or vice versa. One large distinct good omen may outweigh several smaller hazy bad omens. Good and bad should be balanced against each other in determining the forecast.

If mysteries should be revealed to you, question them if you will, but cherish and keep the Gypsy's secret.


• Some of the largest world growers and producers of tea are China, India and Sri Lanka, and the bushes from which tea leaves are harvested are best grown in dense, tropical areas. Now, this sounds like a bit of Monkey News to me, but apparently now you can buy tea that has been hand-picked by, well, monkeys.

• Richard Blechnyden is credited for “inventing” iced tea (this brings me back to considering the “invention” of the chocolate chip cookie—was there really a world with out it?) at the 1904 World’s Fair. Tea Fact Sheet
Tea is the most widely consumed beverage in the world next to water, and can be found
in almost 80% of all U.S. households. It is the only beverage commonly served hot or
iced, anytime, anywhere, for any occasion. On any given day, over 127 million
Americans are drinking tea.
Annual Consumption:
(U.S.)
In 2007, Americans consumed well over 55 billion
servings of tea, or over 2.50 billion gallons. About 82% of
all tea consumed was Black Tea, 17% was Green Tea,
and a small remaining amount was Oolong and White
Tea.
Daily Consumption:
(U.S.)
On any given day, about one half of the American
population drinks tea. On a regional basis, the South and
Northeast have the greatest concentration of tea drinkers.
Iced Tea Consumption:
Approximately 85% of tea consumed in America is iced.
Ready-To-Drink Iced
Teas:
Over the last ten years, Ready-To-Drink Tea has grown
nearly ten fold. In 2007, Ready-To-Drink sales were
conservatively estimated at $2.80 billion.
Tea Bags, Loose Tea &
Iced Tea Mixes:
In 2007, over 65% of the tea brewed in the United States
was prepared using tea bags. Ready-to-Drink and iced tea
mix comprises about one fourth of all tea prepared in the
U.S., with instant and loose tea accounting for the
balance. Instant tea is declining and loose tea is gaining in
popularity, especially in Specialty Tea and coffee outlets.
Current Sales:
2007 was the 16th consecutive year that consumer
purchases of tea increased. Retail supermarket sales alone
surpassed the $1.95 billion dollar mark. Away-from-home
consumption has been increasing by at least 10% annually
over the last decade.
2
Anticipated Sales:
(U.S.)
The industry anticipates strong, continuous growth over
the next five years. This growth will come from all
segments driven by convenience, by interest in the healthy
properties of tea, and by the continued discovery of
Specialty Tea.
Varieties:
Black, Green, Oolong and White teas all come from the
same plant, a warm-weather evergreen named Camellia
sinensis. Differences among the four types of tea result
from the various degrees of processing and the level of
oxidization. Black tea is oxidized for up to 4 hours and
Oolong teas are oxidized for 2-3 hours. As a result, the
tealeaves undergo natural chemical reactions, which result
in taste and color changes, and allow for distinguishing
characteristics. Green & White teas are not oxidized after
processing and they most closely resemble the look and
chemical composition of the fresh tealeaf. Oolong tea is
midway between Black and Green teas in strength and
color.
Grown In:
Much of the world’s tea is grown in mountainous areas
3,000 – 7,000 feet above sea level, situated between the
Tropic of Cancer and the Tropic of Capricorn in mineralrich
soil. Leading tea-producing countries include
Argentina, Brazil, China, India, Indonesia, Kenya
Malawi, Sri Lanka, and Tanzania.
History:
Tea is nearly 5,000 years old. It was discovered in 2737
BC by Chinese Emperor Shen-Nung, known as the
“Divine Healer,” when as legend goes, some tea leaves
accidentally blew into the Emperor’s pot of boiling water.
In the 1600’s, tea became highly popular throughout
Europe and the American colonies. Tea played a dramatic
part in the establishment of the United States of America.
In 1767 the British Government put a tax on the tea used
by American colonists. Protesting this “taxation without
representation,” the colonists decided to stop buying tea
and refused to allow tea ships to be unloaded. One
December night in 1723, men dressed as Native
Americans boarded British ships in Boston Harbor and
threw more than 300 chests of tea into the sea. This now
famous Boston Tea Party, in protest of the British tea tax,
was said to be one of the acts leading to the Revolutionary
War.
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Anna, Duchess of Bedford, is credited with creating
Afternoon Tea in 1840, when she began taking tea with a
light snack around 4:00 p.m. to ward off “that sinking
feeling.”
High Tea originated with the rural and working class
British, who would return to their homes at about 6:00
p.m. for a meal of potted meats, fish, cheese, salads,
sweets, and a pot of strong tea. The U.S. played an
important role in the history of tea, inventing the tea bag
and iced tea, both in 1904. Recently, the U.S. has led the
rest of the world in marketing convenient Ready-To-
Drink forms of tea in bottles.
Environmental
Qualities:
Tea is an all-natural and environmentally sound product
from a renewable source. The tea plant is naturally
resistant to most insects; oxidation of the tealeaf is a
natural process; and, many tea packers use recycled paper
for packaging.
Health Qualities:
Tea is a refreshing beverage that contains no sodium, fat
carbonation, or sugar. It is virtually calorie-free. Tea helps
maintain proper fluid balance and may even contribute to
overall good health.
Tea contains flavonoids, naturally occurring compounds
that are believed to have antioxidant properties.
Antioxidants work to neutralize free radicals, which
scientists believe, over time, damage elements in the
body, such as genetic material and lipids, and contribute
to chronic disease.
Every day, new findings from the international scientific
community lend credibility to tea’s healthy properties.
Recent research has explored the potential health
attributes of tea through studies in humans, animal models
and through in vitro laboratory research. For the most
part, studies conducted on green and black tea, which are
both from the Camellia sinensis plant, have yielded
similar results. Recent research suggests that tea and tea
flavonoids may play important roles in various areas of
health and may operate through a number of different
mechanisms still being explored.
As research continues, here are some exciting recent
findings:
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Heart Health:
The current body of research suggests that drinking 3 to 5
cups of tea per day can offer significant heart health
benefits ranging from reducing heart attack risk to
lowering Low Density Lipoprotein (LDL) cholesterol, or
“bad” cholesterol. For example, one recent study found
that participants who drank more than 16 fl. oz. of black
tea per day had a 50% lower prevalence of cardiovascular
disease (CHD) than non-tea drinkersi. Another study
found that those who drank more than 3 cups of black tea
per day (>375 mL) reduced their risk of heart attack by
43% as compared to non-tea drinkersii. Additionally, a
study conducted by the US Department of Agriculture
(USDA) found that participants who drank 5 cups of
black tea per day along with a diet moderately low in fat
and cholesterol reduced their LDL cholesterol by about
11% after three weeksiii.
Colon Cancer:
Benefits to gastrointestinal (GI) health reaped by teadrinking
seem to be cumulative and dependant upon the
amount of tea consumed per day as well as the number of
tea-drinking years. Findings include the results of a study
finding that women who consumed the equivalent of 2.5
cups of tea per day had a 60% reduction in rectal cancer
risk, compared with women who drank less than 1.2 cups
of tea dailyiv. An additional study found tea drinkers to
have an approximate 42% reduced risk of colon cancer as
compared to non-tea drinkers. Men who drank more than
1.5 cups of tea per day were found to have a 70% lower
colon cancer riskv.
Skin Cancer:
According to University of Arizona research findings,
participants who drank iced black tea and citrus peel had a
42% reduced risk of skin cancervi and hot black tea
consumption was associated with a significantly lower
risk of the most common form of skin cancer, squamous
cell carcinoma (SCC)vii.
Bone Health:
Two recent studies found that tea-drinking women had
higher bone mineral density (BMD) measurements than
non-tea drinkersviii, especially in those who had been
habitual tea-drinkers for six or more yearsix. Higher bone
mineral densities is an indicator of strong bones.
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Caffeine Content: Tea is naturally low in caffeine. A cup of Black Tea, for
example, contains about 40 milligrams of caffeine.
Cost Per Serving:
Prepared in the home, tea costs about three cents per
serving, cup or glass. Tea continues to remain one of the
most economical beverages available.
Tea:
The smart choice for today and the millennium.
i
Now, 85% of the tea consumed in the U.S. is of the iced variety.

• And of course, no one can mention American tea consumption without speaking of December 16, 1773. That’s the date of the Boston Tea Party. Every American middle schooler is brow beaten to know that 342 crates of tea were dumped into Boston Harbor in protest of British Parliament’s Tea Act of 1773. (You guys remembered all that … right? Here’s a refresher.)

• Although we might guess the English, with their tradition of High Tea, to be the world’s number one consumers of the aromatic beverage, it’s the Irish who consume the most tea per capita, with an average person handling 4 cups a day (compare that to the U.S., where the average person has a mere half cup each day!)