Sugar Museum (Berlin)
Andreas Sigismund Marggraf discovered beet sugar there in 1747, and his student Franz Carl Achard was the first to produce it, beginning in 1783, in Kaulsdorf, which became part of Greater Berlin in 1920.
[8] The museum's permanent exhibits cover the science and nutrition of sugar and its history from technological, cultural and political standpoints.
They are organised into seven thematic groups: This section describes the biology and cultivation history of sugarcane (Saccharum spp.
), from its use more than 10,000 years ago by the natives of Melanesia as a source of nutrition to the first report of it in the West by generals of Alexander the Great, successive improvements in sugar refining and its planting on the island of Hispaniola.
[13] In the European refineries, the sugar industry pioneered the use of guest workers, in England predominantly Germans, who had a reputation for hard work, good humour, and the ability to withstand the heat.
[16][17][18] All known varieties of sugar beet today descend from the plants developed by Achard over 20 years of selective breeding in Kaulsdorf.
This section of the museum covers the geographic distribution of sugar production in Germany, the advances in its cultivation and processing over the past 100 years, and the economic and ecological significance of byproducts such as molasses and bagasse; the production of biodegradable plastics, ethanol and yeast are examples of the broader context of the sugar industry.
[20] This section of the museum tells the consumer side of the story of sugar since the 18th century, its use as a status symbol, a medicinal cure and finally an everyday element used far more in foods than is generally realised.
This section of the museum, housed in the winter garden, covers the discovery of alcohol (probably from consumption of fermented fruit) and the history of the use of sugar to make wine, beer and distilled alcoholic beverages such as whisky and brandy, as far back as the Sumerians, who brewed beer 6,000 years ago.
