Cacao beans first arrived in Europe from the New World in 1585, and by the early 17th century chocolate was the favourite drink in palaces and mansions around Europe. As it became more popular, the recipe was refined and hot chocolate was drunk sweet and mixed with cinnamon or other flavours.
PUBLICITY
Printed pamphlets described its miraculous qualities, saying that hot chocolate could improve fertility, cure indigestion or even tuberculosis, and reverse ageing. It was also considered to be a powerful aphrodisiac.
RICH CLIENTS
Towards the end of the 17th century, special ‘chocolate houses’ began to appear in London, particularly in the exclusive area around St. James’s Street. The most famous were White’s, Ozinda’s and The Cocoa Tree. Frequented by the crème de la crème of British society, the chocolate houses helped to associate chocolate with luxury, decadence and even rebellion in the popular imagination. Although the rich clients originally came for the delicious hot drink, they were also attracted by the chocolate house culture of gambling and discussion about everything from poetry to politics.
REBELS
As the chocolate arrived in England from Europe, it was often associated with Catholicism. This was the era of Jacobitism, the underground movement of mainly Catholics who wanted to restore the Catholic Stuarts’ dynasty to the throne of England, instead of the Protestant monarch. King George I in particular feared that chocolate houses were attractive places for Jacobite rebels to meet. In 1715 the proprietor and several customers of Ozinda’s were imprisoned as traitors, and a secret underground passage was discovered, leading from the site of The Cocoa Tree to a tavern in Piccadilly. This was almost certainly an escape route for Jacobite conspirators.
GAMING
White’s on the other hand was more famous for gambling than politics. Established in 1693 by Francesco Bianco, an Italian who called himself Francis White, it was so famous as a gambling den that the artist William Hogarth used it as the setting for his painting The Gaming House. Drunk with chocolate mixed with alcohol, White’s members placed absurd bets, such as whether a man, carried in from the street in a desperate condition, would live or die, or which raindrop would reach the bottom of a windowpane first. Once, £180,000 was lost on the roll of a dice, an enormous sum both at the time and today.
White’s still exists today as an exclusive gentleman’s club at 37 St. James’s Street, with five hundred members and a nine-year waiting list. Whether they still serve hot chocolate is a secret.