Fall Asleep While Learning About The History Of Sugar

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Benjamin Boster.

Today's episode is from a Wikipedia article titled,

History of Sugar.

Sugar was first produced from sugarcane plants in India sometime after the first century A.

D.

The derivation of the word sugar is thought to be from Sanskrit shakara,

Meaning ground or candied sugar,

Originally grit,

Gravel.

Sanskrit literature from ancient India,

Written between 1500 and 500 B.

C.

,

Provides the first documentation of the cultivation of sugarcane and of the manufacture of sugar in the Bengal region of the Indian subcontinent.

Known worldwide by the end of the medieval period,

Sugar was very expensive and was considered a fine spice,

But from about the year 1500,

Technological improvements and new world sources began turning it into a much cheaper bulk commodity.

There are two centers of domestication for sugarcane,

One for Sacrum Officinarum by Papuans in New Guinea,

And another for Sacrum Sinens by Austronesians in Taiwan and southern China.

Papuans and Austronesians originally primarily use sugarcane as a food for domesticated pigs.

A spread of both S.

Officinarum and S.

Sinens is closely linked to the migrations of the Austronesian peoples.

Sacrum barberry was only cultivated in India after the introduction of S.

Officinarum.

Sacrum officinarum was first domesticated in New Guinea and the islands east of the Wallace Line by Papuans,

Where it is the modern center of diversity.

Beginning at around 6000 BP,

They were selectively bred from the native Sacrum robustum.

From New Guinea,

It spread westwards to islands southeast Asia after contact with Austronesians,

Where it hybridized with Sacrum spontaneum.

The second domestication center is mainland southern China and Taiwan,

Where S.

Sinens was a primary coltogen of the Austronesian peoples.

Words for sugarcane exist in the Proto-Austronesian languages in Taiwan,

Reconstructed as tabus or sabus,

Which became tabu in Proto-Malayo-Polynesian.

It was one of the original major crops of the Austronesian peoples from at least 5500 BP.

Introduction of the sweeter S.

Officinarum may have gradually replaced it throughout its cultivated range in islands southeast Asia.

From islands southeast Asia,

S.

Officinarum was spread eastward into Polynesia and Micronesia by Austronesian voyagers as a canoe plant by around 3500 BP.

It was also spread westward and northward by around 3000 BP to China and India by Austronesian traders,

Where it further hybridized with Sacrum sinens and Sacrum barberry.

From there it spread further into western Eurasia and the Mediterranean.

India,

Where the process of refining cane juice into granulated crystals was developed,

Was often visited by imperial convoys,

Such as those from China,

To learn about cultivation and sugar refining.

By the 6th century AD,

Sugar cultivation and processing had reached Persia.

In the Mediterranean,

Sugar cane was possibly brought through the Arab medieval expansion.

Wherever they went,

The medieval Arabs brought with them sugar,

The product and the technology of its production.

Spanish and Portuguese exploration and conquest in the 15th century carried sugar southwest of Iberia.

Henry the Navigator introduced cane to Madeira in 1425,

While the Spanish,

Having eventually subdued the Canary Islands,

Introduced sugar cane to them.

In 1493,

On his second voyage,

Christopher Columbus carried sugar cane seedlings to the New World,

In particular Hispaniola.

Sugar cane originated in tropical Indian subcontinent and southeast Asia.

Different species likely originated in different locations,

With S.

Barberry originating in India and S.

Adule and S.

Aficionarum coming from New Guinea.

Originally,

People chewed sugar cane raw to extract its sweetness.

Indians discovered how to crystallize sugar during the Gupta Empire,

Circa 350 AD,

Although literary evidence from Indian treatises such as Arthashastra in 2nd century AD indicates that refined sugar was already being produced in India.

Indian sailors,

Consumers of clarified butter and sugar,

Carried sugar by various trade routes.

Travelling Buddhist monks brought sugar crystallization methods to China.

During the reign of Harsha in north India,

Indian envoys in Tang China taught sugar cane cultivation methods after Emperor Taizong of Tang made his interest in sugar known,

And China soon established its first sugar cane cultivation in the 7th century.

Chinese documents confirm at least two missions to India,

Initiated in 647 AD,

For obtaining technology for sugar refining.

In India,

The Iran,

And China,

Sugar became a staple of cooking and desserts.

Early refining methods involved grinding or pounding the cane in order to extract the juice.

And then boiling down the juice or drying it in the sun to yield sugary solids that look like gravel.

The Sanskrit word for sugar,

Shakara,

Also means gravel or sand.

In Persian,

Shakar,

The root of the world word sugar from Persian shakar,

Which is from Sanskrit shakara,

Meaning sweetening seeds in Farsi.

Similar,

The Chinese used the term gravel sugar,

Or what is known in the West as table sugar.

In 1792,

Sugar prices soared in Great Britain.

On the 15th of March 1792,

His Majesty's ministers to the British Parliament presented a report related to the production of refined sugar in British India.

Lieutenant J.

Patterson of the Bengal Presidency reported that refined sugar could be produced in India with many superior advantages,

And a lot more cheaply than in the West Indies.

There are records of knowledge of sugar among the ancient Greeks and Romans.

But only as imported medicine and not as a food.

For example,

The Greek physician Dioscorides in the first century AD wrote,

There is a kind of coalesced honey called saccharin,

I.

E.

Sugar,

Found in reeds in India and Udaman,

Arabia,

I.

E.

Yemen,

Similar in consistency to salt and brittle enough to be broken between the teeth like salt.

It is good,

Dissolved in water for the intestines and stomach,

And can be taken as a drink to help relieve a painful bladder and kidneys.

Pliny the Elder,

A first century AD Roman,

Also described sugar as medicinal.

Sugar is made in Arabia as well,

But Indian sugar is better.

It is a kind of honey found in cane,

White as gum,

And it crunches between the teeth.

It comes in lumps the size of a hazelnut.

Sugar is used only for medicinal purposes.

During the medieval era,

Arab entrepreneurs adopted sugar production techniques from India and expanded the industry.

Medieval Arabs in some cases set up large plantations equipped with on-site sugar mills or refineries.

The cane sugar plant,

Which is native to a tropical climate,

Requires both a lot of water and a lot of heat to thrive.

The cultivation of the plant spread throughout the medieval Arab world using artificial irrigation.

Sugar cane was first grown extensively in medieval southern Europe during the period of Arab rule in Sicily,

Beginning around the 9th century.

In addition to Sicily,

Al-Andalus,

In what is currently southern Spain,

Was an important center of sugar production,

Beginning by the 10th century.

From the Arab world,

Sugar was exported throughout Europe.

The volume of imports increased in the later medieval centuries as indicated by the increasing references to sugar consumption in late medieval western writings.

But cane sugar remained an expensive import.

Its price per pound in 14th and 15th century England was about equally as high as imported spices from tropical Asia,

Such as mace,

Nutmeg,

Ginger,

Cloves,

And pepper,

Which had to be transported across the Indian Ocean in that era.

Clive Ponting traces the spread of the cultivation of sugar cane from its introduction into Mesopotamia,

Then the Levant on the islands of the eastern Mediterranean,

Especially Cyprus,

By the 10th century.

He also notes that it spread along the coast of East Africa to reach Zanzibar.

Crusaders brought sugar home with them to Europe after their campaigns in the Holy Land,

Where they encountered caravans carrying what they called sweet salt.

Early in the 12th century,

Venice acquired some villages near Tyre and set up estates to produce sugar for export to Europe,

Where it supplemented honey as the only other available sweetener.

Crusade chronicler William of Tyre,

Writing in the late 12th century,

Described sugar as a most precious product,

Very necessary for the use and health of mankind.

The first record of sugar in English is in the late 13th century.

During the 1390s,

A better press was developed,

Which doubled the amount of juice that was obtained from the sugar cane and helped to cause the economic expansion of sugar plantations to Andalusia and to the Algarve.

It started in Madeira in 1455,

Using advisors from Sicily and largely Genoese capital for the mills.

The accessibility of Madeira attracted Genoese and Flemish traders keen to bypass Venetian monopolies.

By 1480,

Antwerp had some 70 ships engaged in the Madeira sugar trade,

With the refining and distribution concentrated in Antwerp.

The 1480s saw sugar production extended to the Canary Islands.

By the 1490s,

Madeira had overtaken Cyprus as a producer of sugar.

The Portuguese took sugar to Brazil.

By 1540,

There were 800 cane sugar mills in Santa Catarina Island,

And there were another 2,

000 on the north coast of Brazil,

Demerara,

And Suriname.

The first sugar harvest happened in Hispaniola in 1501,

And many sugar mills had been constructed in Cuba and Jamaica by the 1520s.

The approximately 3,

000 small sugar mills that were built before 1550 in the New World traded in unprecedented demand for cast iron gears,

Levers,

Axles,

And other implements.

Specialist trades in mold making and iron casting developed in Europe due to the expansion of sugar production.

Sugar mill construction sparked development of the technological skills needed for a nascent industrial revolution in the early 17th century.

After 1625,

The Dutch transported sugarcane from South America to the Caribbean Islands,

Where it was grown from Barbados to the Virgin Islands.

Contemporaries often compared the worth of sugar with valuable commodities including musk,

Pearls,

And spices.

Sugar prices declined slowly as its production became multi-sourced throughout the European colonies.

Once an indulgence only of the rich,

The consumption of sugar also became increasingly common among the poor as well.

Sugar production increased in the mainland North American colonies in Cuba and in Brazil.

During the 18th century,

Sugar became enormously popular.

Great Britain,

For example,

Consumed five times as much sugar in 1770 as in 1710.

By 1750,

Sugar surpassed grain as the most valuable commodity in European trade.

It made up a fifth of all European imports,

And in the last decades of the century,

Four-fifths of the sugar came from the British and French colonies in the West Indies.

From the 1740s until the 1820s,

Sugar was Britain's most valuable import.

The sugar market went through a series of booms.

The heightened demand and production of sugar came about to a large extent due to a great change in the eating habits of many Europeans.

For example,

They began consuming jams,

Candy,

Tea,

Coffee,

Cocoa,

Processed foods,

And other sweet victuals in much greater amounts.

Reacting to this increasing trend,

The Caribbean islands took advantage of the situation and set about producing still more sugar.

In fact,

They produced up to 90% of the sugar that the Western Europeans consumed.

Some islands proved more successful than others when it came to producing the product.

In Barbados and the British Leeward Islands,

Sugar provided 93% and 97% respectively of exports.

Planters later began developing ways to boost production even more.

For example,

They began using more farming methods when growing their crops.

They also developed more advanced mills and began using better types of sugar cane.

In the 18th century,

The French colonies were the most successful,

Especially Saint-Domingue,

Where better irrigation,

Water power,

And machinery,

Together with concentration on newer types of sugar,

Increased profits.

Despite these and other improvements,

The price of sugar reached soaring heights especially during events such as the revolt against the Dutch and the Napoleonic Wars.

Sugar remained in high demand and the island's planters knew exactly how to take advantage of the situation.

As Europeans established sugar plantations on the larger Caribbean islands,

Prices fell in Europe.

By the 18th century,

All levels of society had become common consumers of the former luxury product.

At first,

Most sugar in Britain went into tea,

But later confectionery and chocolates became extremely popular.

Many Britons,

Especially children,

Also ate jams.

Suppliers commonly sold sugar in the form of a sugar loaf,

And consumers required sugar nips,

A pliers-like tool,

To break off pieces.

Sugar cane quickly exhausts the soil in which it grows,

And planters pressed larger islands with fresher soil into production in the 19th century as demand for sugar in Europe continued to increase.

Average consumption in Britain rose from 4 pounds per head in 1700 to 18 pounds in 1800,

36 pounds by 1850,

And over 100 pounds by the 20th century.

In the 19th century,

Cuba rose to become the richest land in the Caribbean with sugar as its dominant crop because it formed the only major island landmass free of mountainous terrain.

Instead,

Nearly three quarters of its land formed a rolling plain,

Ideal for planting crops.

Cuba also prospered above other islands because Cubans used better methods when harvesting the sugar crops.

They adapted modern milling methods such as water mills,

Enclosed furnaces,

Steam engines,

And vacuum pans.

All these technologies increased productivity.

After the Haitian Revolution established the independent state of Haiti,

Sugar production in that country declined and Cuba replaced Saint Domingue as the world's largest producer.

Long established in Brazil,

Sugar production spread to other parts of South America,

As well as to newer European colonies in Africa and in the Pacific,

Where it became especially important in Fiji.

Mauritius,

Natal,

And Queensland in Australia started growing sugar.

Sugar was a luxury in Europe until the early 19th century when it became more widely available due to the rise of beet sugar in Prussia and later in France under Napoleon.

Beet sugar was a German invention since in 1747 Andreas Sigismund Margraf announced the discovery of sugar in beets and devised a method using alcohol to extract it.

Margraf's student Franz Karl Eckhard devised an economical industrial method to extract the sugar in its pure form in the late 18th century.

Eckhard first produced beet sugar in 1783 in Karlsdorf.

In 1801,

Under the patronage of King Frederick William III of Prussia,

The world's first beet sugar production facility was established in Kunern,

Silesia,

Then part of Prussia.

While never profitable,

This plant operated from 1801 until its destruction during the Napoleonic Wars.

The works of Margraf and Eckhard were the starting point for the sugar industry in Europe and for the modern sugar industry in general since sugar was no longer a luxury product and a product almost only produced in warmer climates.

In France,

Napoleon cut off from Caribbean imports by a British blockade and at any rate not wanting to fund British merchants banned imports of sugar in 1813 and ordered the planting of 32,

000 hectares with beetroot.

A beet sugar industry emerged especially after Jean-Baptiste Carrel industrialized the operation of Benjamin de la Serre.

The United Kingdom Beetroot Sugar Association was established in 1832,

But efforts to establish sugar beet in the UK were not very successful.

Sugar beets provided approximately two-thirds of world sugar production in 1899.

46% of British sugar came from Germany and Austria.

Sugar prices in Britain collapsed towards the end of the 19th century.

The British Sugar Beet Society was set up in 1915 and by 1930 there were 17 factories in England and one in Scotland,

Supported under the provisions of the British Sugar Act 1925.

By 1935,

Homegrown sugar was 27.

6% of British consumption.

By 1929,

109,

201 people were employed in the British sugar beet industry with about 25,

000 more casual laborers.

Beginning in the late 18th century,

The production of sugar became increasingly mechanized.

The steam engine first powered a sugar mill in Jamaica in 1768,

And soon after steam replaced direct firing as a source of process heat.

In 1813,

The British chemist Edward Charles Howard invented a method of refining sugar that involved boiling the cane juice,

Not in an open kettle,

But in a closed vessel heated by steam and held under partial vacuum.

At reduced pressure,

Water boils at a lower temperature,

And this development both saved fuel and reduced the amount of sugar lost through caramelization.

Further gains in fuel efficiency came from the multiple effect evaporator,

Designed by the United States engineer Norbert Rieu,

Perhaps as early as the 1820s,

Although the first working model dates from 1845.

This system consisted of a series of vacuum pans,

Each held at a lower pressure than the previous one.

The vapors from each pan served to heat the next,

With minimal heat wasted.

Modern industries used multiple effect evaporators for evaporating water.

The process of separating sugar from molasses also received mechanical attention.

David Weston first applied the centrifuge to this task in Hawaii in 1852.

In the United States and Japan,

High fructose corn syrup has replaced sugar in some uses,

Particularly in soft drinks and processed foods.

The process by which high fructose corn syrup is produced was first developed by Richard O.

Marshall and Earl K.

Cooey in 1957.

The industrial production process was refined by Dr.

Y.

Takasaki at Agency of Industrial Science and Technology of Ministry of International Trade and Industry of Japan in 1965-1970.

High fructose corn syrup was rapidly introduced to many processed foods and soft drinks in the United States from around 1975-1985.

A system of sugar tariffs and sugar quotas imposed in 1977 in the United States significantly increased the cost of imported sugar in the United States.

High fructose corn syrup derived from corn is more economical because the domestic U.

S.

Price of sugar is twice the global price,

And the price of corn is kept low through government subsidies paid to growers.

High fructose corn syrup became an attractive substitute and is preferred over cane sugar in many countries.

Soft drink makers such as Coca-Cola and Pepsi used sugar in other nations,

But switched to high fructose corn syrup in the United States in 1984.

The U.

S.

Has a long history of producing high fructose corn syrup.

The U.

S.

Has a long history of producing high fructose corn syrup.

The U.

S.

Has a long history of producing high fructose corn syrup.