A turning point in the history of chocolate came in 1828, when Dutchman Coenraad Johannes van Houten patented a new hydraulic press. Van Houten wanted to improve the quality of drinking chocolate - which he did - but a side effect of his invention made solid chocolate of the kind we know today a practical proposition.

Van Houten's press gave him a solid mass which could be ground to powder, from which he made easily soluble, easily digestible and - relatively - easily affordable cocoa.

The press left him with a lot of cocoa butter. It was this by-product which became the basis for the solid chocolate developed some 20 years later by Englishman Joseph Fry, who mixed it back into the cocoa paste.