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Who paid the highest price for chocolate?

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Gourmet Chocolates, Columbus—>Click here.

Columbus was searching for a shorter route to the East Indies when he ran into the New World. The spices were in Far East—India, China, Southeast Asia, and the associated islands—but the demand was in Europe. The Arabs who took great caravans across the deserts to reach the Far East controlled the spice trade. But this kept the supply of spices limited, prices high, and the Europeans felt, the money in the wrong hands.

The Europeans soon discovered that they could travel to the Far East by sailing around the southern tip of Africa and into the Indian Ocean. But it was a long and dangerous trip and ships were lost in the storms of the southern seas. A shorter route meant the ships could get to the Far East faster and safer, and cut out the competitors.

Cocoa, Pods, Tobago Photographic Print
Alastair Shay
Buy Photographic Print at AllPosters.com

Besides finding the New World, Columbus found cocoa beans, the seeds of Theobroma cacao. From a bitter but prized "Indios" drink, the Spanish created a chocolate drink with cinnamon, vanilla, and sugar to suit the European taste. And they managed to keep the source of chocolate a secret. They controlled a delicacy that was the rage of Europe.

Chocolate was just one of the numerous things the Europeans wanted from the New World. Hundreds of expeditions were sent and eventually others discovered the source of chocolate. Royal coffers filled with the plundered wealth from the New World.

And what of the natives who revered chocolate for hundreds of years? Their children or leaders would be held hostage with payment demanded in cocoa beans. Their homes were burned, their leaders assassinated, and many who weren't killed were forced into slavery.

The Missouri Botanical Garden has a great photograph of the pods growing on the trunk of Theobroma cacao. To view how the cocoa bean containing pods grow on the tree, click on the link:

http://www.mobot.org/education/brookings/trfeco/cacao.html

Series: | 1 | | 2 | 3 |

killerPlants Tendrils: ~~1~~2~~3~~4~~5~~

Milton Hershey: The Chocolate King DVD

A&E/Biography®

Milton Hershey was born in a Pennsylvania farmhouse and completed only the fourth grade before he was put to work as a printer's apprentice. But by the age of 18, Milton had discovered his unique calling: He would manufacture delicious, affordable confections. With a combination of ingenuity and persistence, he built his Hershey Chocolate Company into a bustling enterprise for himself and his workers an empire with a bank, department store, park, churches, golf courses, a zoo, even a trolley system.

Join BIOGRAPHY® for the inspiring life story of the man who dared to offer his employees dignity and prosperity, and made himself wildly rich in the process. Milton Hershey: The Chocolate King DVD Click here.

Gourmet Chocolates

zChocolat.com®

The newest addition to our romantic collection - everything about Orpheon connotes love. This painstakingly handcrafted wooden box with three delicate drawers filled with our award winning, handmade artisanal chocolates, is lovingly decorated with 2 romantic commingled hearts on an engraved brass plate. The box, with its neat drawers, makes an ideal keepsake for jewelry when the chocolates have all been savored (don't forget chocolate refills are available to replenish the magic).

Orpheon is accompanied by an ivory rose of delicate fabric - a perfect exclamation mark of the occasion. You can even add a second brass plate with your message of love and finish this gift with our most romantic gift wrap.

You have given chocolates before, just never like this! About zChocolat Luxury chocolates

Christopher Columbus: Explorer Of The New World DVD

A&E/Biography®

He was determined to find a western route to Asia, but wound up discovering the New World. But despite his accomplishments, he died a broken, largely forgotten man.

Christopher Columbus wanted to find a new route to Asia, but became the first European to set foot on the New World. Evidence now proves that the Vikings were there long before him, but even in his own time later explorers usurped his glory!

BIOGRAPHY® uses period accounts, rare art and artifacts and interviews with world-renowned historians to tell Columbus's often-reinterpreted story. See how he convinced Ferdinand and Isabella to fund his journey and how he never gave up believing that he had reached Asia. Discover how his fortunes and reputation sank so quickly that by the time of his fourth voyage Spanish officials would not let him anchor in their waters.

From the dream that led him across the horizon to the fortunes that deserted him and the ongoing controversy over his true place in history, this is the dramatic story of Christopher Columbus. Christopher Columbus: Explorer Of The New World DVD Click here.

Conquest of America DVD set

The History Channel®

After Columbus came conquest--from all corners of the world, explorers reached the shores of the New World to reap untold riches, seek new routes to the Far East, and gain the most elusive glory of all--a place in history...

CONQUEST OF AMERICA brings a stunning four-part series from THE HISTORY CHANNEL® to DVD for the first time. A sweeping saga of bravery, cruelty and pure folly, these are the stories of adventurers who stopped at nothing to conquer an unknown land and its peoples.

Led by legendary cities of gold and mythical passages to China, foiled by international intrigue and mutiny on the high seas, men like Francisco Vasquez de Coronado, Henry Hudson, Jean Ribault, and Vitus Bering left an indelible mark on a vast new continent.

Straight from the explorers' journals, European diaries and oral histories of Native Americans, CONQUEST OF AMERICA presents an amazing, region-by-region account of extraordinary times and extraordinary men. Expert commentary and vivid on-site re-enactments complete this epic course in history. Conquest of America DVD set Click here.