Belgium Choclate

In Belgium, chocolate is more than a business; it is part of the culture. The Mother-of-four set up by a widowed in her own home, the outlet has become such a symbol of success that the Belgian Prime Minister, Guy Verhofstadt, took their chocolates on a recent trade mission to the US. One other Brussels chocolatier boasts the US president as a customer. Chocolatier Mary displays a photo of George W Bush lingering over its praline counter during a visit to the Belgian capital.

Belgium's love affair with chocolate dates from 1857 when Jean Neuhaus left his native Switzerland to set up shop in Brussels.

His grandson, also known as Jean Neuhaus, created the first filled chocolate, which he named 'praline', and his wife invented the type of box, or ballotin, in which Belgian chocolate is still sold. Chocolate-making really took off in the late nineteenth century, aided by Belgium's acquisition of the Congo which gave easy access to African cocoa fields. Now, under Belgium chocolates there are many Internationally-known brands which include Neuhaus and Godiva at the luxury end and Leonidas and Guylian in the cheaper price bracket.

Consequently, Belgium's chocolate industry is as varied as it is big.

With a population of around 10million, Belgium produces 172,000 tons of chocolate a year and has more than 2,000 shops. Moreover it supports 290 chocolate-makers, 140 of which have fewer than five employees and seem to customers more like somebody's quaint front room than world-renowned businesses. Passion Chocolate is the prime example of such small-scale operations. "Most of the exports are going to the US and the most spectacular growth is in the internet sales," Mary's owner, Michel Boey, says.

"We began selling via the internet in 2001 and, from zero; exports are now about 15 per cent of our sales." For big factory producers like Guylian, the figures are even higher.

"Chocolate is a little bit of magic for the Belgian."

Over a thousand years ago somewhere in Central America, an Aztec Indian picked an odd, football-shaped fruit from the trunk and branches of a medium size, smooth-barked tree of the rainforest. Maybe the fruit, encased in a hard fibrous pod, was past its prime the normally refreshing white pulp slightly fermented, and the almond like seeds, or beans, dried out. Possibly the Indian splits the seed, or tosses the entire fruit, into the fire to cook. As the beans roast he was captivated by the aroma that we now associate with hot cocoa, freshly baked chocolate cake or hot fudge, perhaps this is the birth of humankind's millennia-old love affair with chocolate.

Chocolate was considered to be a cure for many illnesses and to provoke passion as well as tasting good during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries although it was still too expensive for people not in high society. The cocoa bean today is still in high demand of its sweet chocolate uses, as well as cocoa butter, cocoa powder and cocoa paste. The wastes of the chocolate making process are also being looked at for their potential uses; these include cocoa pulp and pod husks. In earlier times the cocoa pulp was also used as a beverage by South American natives.

The correct establishment of the cocoa tree into plantations is important in obtaining the desired yields of the cocoa bean. Shade trees are also essential for the cocoa tree survival and for its growing in the desired shape and height. The final important factor in plantation establishment and management is water management and properly constructed infield drainage The plants start to bear fruit at 18