ABSTRACT
Chapter 1 introduces the changes in cocoa and chocolate marketing networks that took place between the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. The transition from distribution through social networks to the building of commercial connections that took place during this lapse of time is investigated by focusing on the role played by the Spanish Crown and the Guipuzcoan Company (1728–1785) in reshaping taste and broadening demand. While the Spanish Crown, through sometimes contradictory policies and due to unintended effects, fueled the differentiation of consumption and the diffusion of chocolate, the economic structure of the production–distribution network acted as both the product and the agent of chocolate’s demand.
