The earliest references to sugar making appear in Sanskrit literature of the fourth century BC, but sucrose was practically unknown in Northern Europe until around 1000 AD.
It was only several century later that sugar began to reach Europe in sizeable quantities, both overland and via the Mediterranean. In the mid of 8th century, sugar cane was planted for the first time, sugar made from it, on European soil along Spain’s southern littoral.
A century birth of Islam established from Arabian peninsula to Southern Spain, an administrative and culturally allowed the development of the technology required to successful production of the novel sugar cane crop.
Sugar production in the early Islamic world harnessed both water and wind power to drive the crushing mills.
These technologies , as well as the practice of refining, were transferred to the Americas via the Atlantic islands.
With the development of the African slave trade in the mid 1400s the processing and ready accessibility of sugar became quickly established.
Until the mid nineteenth century sugar remained an extremely expensive luxury good in Europe, more properly thought of a spice than a food per se.
The first attempt at applying power to sugar production was made by John Stewart in 1768 in Jamaica. The first steam engine reported in Cuba was at the Ingenio Seibabo of the Conde de Mopox y Jaruco in 1769.
Although these steam engine=s made use of the crushed canes as fuel. They often depend on coal and other non-renewable resources, on contrast to the renewable of animal, wind and waterpower of earlier centuries.
The introduction of vacuum heating technology later revolutionized the boiling process and the introduction of the centrifugal machine likewise revolutionized the curing processed.
History of sugar production
