Sugar

The word sugar from the German Zucker is derived from the Arabic Sukkar and from the Sanskrit śarkarā (= sweet). Sugar is an important food ingredient. In sugar factories, cane sugar is mainly produced from sugar cane or beet sugar from sugar beet and is delivered to the market as white or raw (brownish), in loose form (in crystals, powder) or as solidified, compressed forms (lumps or cubes). The world production of sugar is around 160 million tons per year, and sugar is thus an economically very important commodity.

History: Around 6000 BC, sugar cane cultivation spread from Melanesia to India and Persia. The first mentions of cooking sweet juice from sugar cane come from India in the 5th century, from where this technique was transferred to China in the 7th century. The thickened juice was poured into conical wooden or clay vessels, where it crystallized; thus the sugar cubes were created. Saccharum was already imported to Rome in late antiquity as a delicacy and luxury item.

After the fall of Rome, this trade disappeared and sugar was brought only by the participants of the Crusades around 1100, and the Venetians began to grow cane in Lebanon. From the 16th century, sugar cane was grown in the colonies, especially in Cuba and throughout the Caribbean, but sugar remained a luxury item and the common people continued to sweeten it with honey.