Official Newspaper of Eddy County since 1883
Official Newspaper of Eddy County since 1883
Based on the production date of this Monarch cocoa tin, we can compare to the historic record and discern some of the details about the cocoa contained inside. It likely would have been grown in Africa and processed with alkali salts to reduce bitterness, a process known as "Dutching."
The artifact featured this week is a metal cocoa tin dating back to the 1920s. Monarch cocoa was one of the many products produced and marketed by Reid, Murdoch & Co of Chicago, Ill., established in 1873.
There's more to the history of this object and its contents than that. Afterall, the origins of cocoa date back to the equatorial empire of the Olmec, who occupied portions of Central Am...