History of milk chocolate

While visiting Jamaica from 1687 to 1689, Hans Sloan, a physician and botanist, who found the chocolate drink by the locals to be ‘nauseous’.

In 1727, Nicholas Sanders, an Englishman first blended chocolate with milk to produce the hot chocolate and served the drink for Sloane. Sir Hans Sloane was the first surgeon to King George II.

This was not modern milk by simply milk mixed with chocolate liquor.  Sanders had not perfected the process so many years later. John Cadbury borrowed his idea and attempted to perfect it.

Milk Chocolate Bar

Meanwhile, Hans Sloane developed a recipe that mastered the art of adding cocoa to milk. John Cadbury later teamed up with Sloane to create deliciously creamy hot chocolate that nearly all consumers could afford.

Cadbury acquired the rights and the label for ‘Sir Hans Sloane’s Milk Chocolate prepared after the original recipe.’

The directions were simple: ‘Put one ounce of chocolate to a pint of boiling milk, add sugar’. This product pre-dated the Cocoa Essence revolution, having been launching in 1849 and lasted a surprisingly long time until 1885.

In 1860s and 1870s, two Swiss men, Henri Nestlé and Daniel Peter produced the first milk chocolate bars.
History of milk chocolate