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How sugar made it to Europe .
Sweetness in older than sugar.
Europeans and others have respected sugar for thousands of years . Prior to knowing sugar, our ancestors used honey and other sweet ingredients which were used as sweeteners. We know all that thanks to Mediterranean antique culture writings and bareljeefs .
Oldest known sweetener is honey. In Arãna caves there are 12000 years old murals where are depicted woman honey collectors. As nowadays , womans used honey to make food, heal wounds and to make mead. At first our ancestors used wild bee’s honey which was collected from their nests. Later , people started to keep bees in hives, as is the case today.
Although the sugar arrived in Europe around 1100th year , it reached a wide use until 16th century . In the meantime had the privilege of the rich sugar used to flavor foods , as well as medication.
Sugar cane comes from the Pacific Islands
The first was to prepare the sugar cane (saccharum officinarum). Herb , which evolved into a cane, came from the Pacific Ocean from individual smaller islands, such as Polynesia and Melanesia. Experts have identified the origin of these herbs of 10 000 - 15 000 years ago, then. The original plant was on those from the smaller islands in Indonesia , India and China about 8,000 years ago and is now extinct . Today's sugar cane can grow up to six meters in height. Sugar cane growing tropical and subtropical climates. Since sugar cane requires a lot of water and heat , it can be grown only in southern Europe, including Spain, Portugal and Madeira . The world's largest sugar cane producers are Brazil , Cuba, India, the Philippines and Mexico .
How do people use sugar content of sweet before it developed modern methods for the production of sugar? In they India pressed out of sugar cane cloudy juice or they licked it as lollypop such as sugar cane - it is the practice in many countries still exist . Later, people began to boil sugar cane juice, sweet - both were solid sugar crystals.
"Cane, which gives the sugar without the aid of bees"
According to legend, brought the cane - or at least it can be transmitted Kumu - first to Greece by Alexander the Great, expedition returning to India. Around the year 300BC the mother Nearchos sailed along the Persian Gulf to the Indus river , on the river side by side but the wind rising sugar canes. Nearchos picked one of the plants , taste it, and said: "Indian dish , which gives the sugar without the aid of bees."
Western Mediterranean Arabs brought sugar. Having occupied the south of Spain and Sicily, there they raised sugar cane. During the Middle Ages was the major sugar importer-exporter of Venice. Raw cane sugar imported from India and refined in Venice prior to export to the rest of Europe.
White gold
Sugar was very expensive, and it was known as "white gold" name. The rich collections of people, even if sugar is a precious asset .
 
It is said that one of the bishop of the Portuguese merchants bought for many years in the sugar and kept it in its chamber . When he died, his fortune was divided between the monks of the monastery . Other assets to be distributed among the sugar. Monks wanted to know how it tastes, but the faces of these people filed dragged long. Instead, they felt uncomfortable with a sweet bitter taste. They did not know that the sugar was shipped out of Egypt , camels back . During the journey itself sucked sugar camels sweat it made sugar bitter. Since the sweet taste had been violated, the sugar was now worthless.
Increase in the production of sugar
15th sugar production increased At the end of the century, when explorers led to the cane further south. For example, the Portuguese navigator prince Henrique brought sugar cane from Sicily Hotel. Originally allocated to sugar cane juice by hand pressing . Later used as animal powered mills, and finally began to squeeze the juice veejõu assistance.
And sugar-growing colonies
Columbus discovered his trips to the Caribbean climate is ideal for sugar cane cultivation. He had learned the cultivation of sugar cane in Madeira and the way to America and the West Indian sugar islands, where it is planted and grown in large farms. Raw sugar was served back in Europe, where it is refined and sold . After the production of sugar began to increase in sugar trading and the broader upper classes it was no longer a privilege.
In most European countries was 17 century in different parts of the world's colonies, the countries themselves, for themselves where they could grow sugar cane. Darker aspect of the history of sugar in the transport of slaves from Africa to work sugar cane plants.
The transition from sugar beet
During the Napoleonic Wars ( 1803 -1815) Napoleon blocked sea “roads” to prevent the importation of sugar ships. As a result, the sugar cane began to look for replacements. Found that sugar beet can be separated. Beet-sugar was very low at that time, however , and sugar prices rose .
 
After the Napoleonic wars the French abandoned the stock trades under the control of sugar cane, and became available again . Beet-sugar production died. The situation changed again, however, if the 19th mid-century, slavery was abolished, cheap labor has disappeared, and the price of sugar rose again. By that time, was bred to sugar beet and sugar cane had reached the same level. Was about to begin an entirely new chapter in the history of the sugar.
However, from more than half the world cane sugar production continues today.