Americans took advantage of the large-scale technological innovation that happened at the same time as industrial revolution in europe. For chocolate, the most critical invention is Van Haultain's cocoa pressing technology. This technology was patented by King William I of the Netherlands in 1828. Before Van Haultain, Diderot's encyclopedia listed a similar device with a large wooden screw. According to records, people use it to extract cocoa oil from cocoa bean liquid, leaving cocoa powder. But only Van Halton had a business mind and applied for a patent for this invention. As early as when cocoa first appeared in Europe, before Van Harta invented the squeezing equipment, low-lying countries such as the Netherlands had already started to engage in cocoa production. At that time, these countries developed a new technology (adding potassium carbonate to make cocoa products more shiny and make cocoa better dispersed in milk or water), which made the Dutch chocolate manufacturing industry lead the world. At first, the British seemed surprised by this invention, because they thought cocoa butter was a very important nutrient in cocoa. But soon, they bought a piece from Holland and sold refined cocoa powder under the banner of "pure and authentic cocoa essence".
Shortly thereafter, some manufacturers began to produce edible chocolate. Many people claim to be the first person to mix squeezed cocoa butter and cocoa powder to make chocolate solid blocks. Looking back now, I still feel very strange why Van Haltan's invention appeared before the earliest chocolate solid, because it is completely possible to make edible chocolate without squeezing out chocolate fat. 1842, Cadbury's first French edible chocolate went on the market, and the price at that time was 2 shillings. Before that, cocoa had been added to other candied fruit as an ingredient, but milk chocolate did not appear at that time, and finally the Swiss came up with the idea. At that time, Henri Nestlé was trying to mix condensed milk with the grain produced by his company to make breakfast food. His partner, daniel peter, tried to mix this new form of milk with cocoa, cocoa butter and sugar, and the products made in this way were sold under the brand of "Peter's". This product has become the benchmark of milk chocolate in Europe and has maintained this position for many years.