Sugar cube

"Sugar cube" redirects here. For other uses, see Sugar cubes (disambiguation).

Sugar cube

Media: Sugar cube

The cube sugar is granulated refined (GR) white sugar pressed into the shape of a small cuboid (sugar cube) and mostly intended for consumers to sweeten their drinks. There are two main way of using the sugar cubes. In some cultures, the pieces are used as granulated sugar: they are dropped into the drink and dissolved there. In other countries, the cube is placed into the mouth, where it slowly dissolves during the tea drinking.

Since the pressing uses the molding process, the name molded cube sugar is also used.

Size and packaging

Two-piece sugar cube packaging (Germany)

The typical size for the cube is 20x20x12 millimeters, corresponding to the weight of approximately 5 grams. However, the cube sizes and shapes vary greatly, for example, playing card suits-shaped pieces are produced under the name "bridge cube sugar".

The typical packaging weight is 0.5 kilogram (1 pound) or 1 kilogram / 2 pounds.

In 1923 German wholesaler Karl Hellmann started packaging pair of cubes into individual wrappings with advertisements or collectible pictures on the sleeves. Originally very popular at the cafés, they were quickly replaced in the beginning of the 21st century by the granulated sugar in packets and sticks.}}

Manufacturing

When making the cubes, the GR sugar is slightly (2-3%) moistened, placed into a mold and heated so that the moisture can escape. The firmness, density, and speed of dissolution of the cube are controlled via the crystal size of the GR sugar, amount of water/steam added, molding pressure, speed of drying. The dissolution speed is important, as the consumers that place the sugar into their mouths prefer denser, slower-dissolving sugar.

The input material usually requires a wide distribution of sizes (from 500 microns and up) for the cube stability.

The cubes are made on the highly automated lines capable of processing up to 50 tons of sugar per day. Typically, one of the three common processes is used to produce the more popular soft cubes:

• Vibro process of Swedish Sugar Corporation (from the late 1950s) utilizes vibration to fill the molds and to get the formed cubes out. Heat radiation oven is used for drying;
• Chambon process was invented in France in 1949 and uses a rotating molding unit and a vertical dryer;
• Elba process is similar to Chambon.

History

Sugarloaf cutting box with tools

The sugarloafs were hard to break into manageable pieces, dangerous tools were used in the process (apparently, Jakub Kryštof Rad, the inventor of the first sugar cube, started his effort after his wife hurt herself while chopping the sugarloaf). The resulting pieces were irregular in size; if the piece was too large, either sugar nips had to be used, or the piece had to be dunked into the tea cup like a donut, and after sufficient dissolution taken out to dry for the next use (the latter option was described by Lev Tolstoy in his "Where Love Is, God Is": "Stepanich drank his glass, turned it upside down and set the leftover bit of sugar on it").

Rad had successfully made the first sugar cubes in the early 1840s by pressing moist sugar into a tray resembling the modern ice cube trays and letting the cubes dry. Despite Rad obtaining a patent in 1843, his business was ultimately unsuccessful.

Next breakthrough came almost 30 years later, when Eugen Langen, of the Pfeifer & Langen, used a centrifuge to produce blocks of sugar that were subsequently cut into cubes. Henry Tate (Tate & Lyle) acquired from Langen exclusive rights for producing the cubes in Britain (on 13 March 1875) and started the first large-scale manufacturing of cubes. Tate placed a very large bet on the innovation, temporarily running through personal financial difficulties to the extent that he had to pull his daughter from the boarding school she attended. The contract with Langen involved royalties, but the factory was successful, producing 214 tons of cubes in 1878 and 1,366 tons in 1888.

In the 1880 Tate acquired rights to another process, invented in Belgium by Gustav Adant, where sugar "tablets" were manufacture on rotating machines and the sliced into cubes (at the time, they were called "dominoes"). The new process had replaced the Langen's one in 1891 and was a huge success; standard quotes for refined sugar in London started to be expressed in Tate's cubes.

The first process that allowed to mold cubes without any cutting was invented in Boston by Charles H. Hersey ("Hersey drum", 1879); some of these units, modified in 1929 to produce fancy-shaped pieces, are still in use today.

Adant's process is also still used, for example, at the Raffinerie Tirlemontoise (since 1902) to make extremely hard cubes popular in Belgium, France, and Arab countries.

Use

Absinthe preparation stages

The cubes were and are mostly used to sweeten the tea and coffee (the original Rad's pieces were even sold as "tea-sugar"). Recent popularity of the artificial sweeteners and switching from the filtered coffee to the capuccino-like drinks turned the sugar cubes into a niche product primarily used in the bars or served at the formal afternoon tea events.

The specialty uses of cubes include:

• the classical Old Fashioned cocktail recipe with a sugar cube infused with Angostura bitters;
• paraphernalia for serving the absinthe includes the slotted absinthe spoon on top of the glass. A sugar cube is placed onto the spoon and a slow drip of water dissolves it into the drink, creating the desired milky louche effect. Specialized cubes are produced and packaged for the absinthe ritual;
• sugar cubes can be infused with a drug, making a calibrated oral delivery simple. This was used both for for administering the polio vaccine and for distribution of illegal drugs, like the LSD (leaving the "cube" as a slang term for the latter).

Sources

• Asadi, M. (2006). "Cube Sugar". Beet-Sugar Handbook. Wiley. pp. 454–455. ISBN 978-0-471-79098-3. Retrieved 2023-10-01.
• Grigorieva, Alexandra (2015). "sugar cubes". The Oxford Companion to Sugar and Sweets. Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/acref/9780199313396.001.0001. ISBN 978-0-19-931339-6.
• Kennedy, Pagan (November 16, 2012). "Who Made That Sugar Cube?". The New York Times Magazine.
• Chalmin, P. (1990). "Thames Refinery and the Cubes". The Making of a Sugar Giant: Tate and Lyle, 1859-1989. Harwood Academic Publishers. ISBN 978-3-7186-0434-0. Retrieved 2023-10-01.
• Kirschner, Sebastian (March 2, 2016). "Die Würfel sind gefallen". Süddeutsche Zeitung Magazin (in German). Archived from the original on 2018-07-05.
• Strang, J.; Arnold, W. N; Peters, T. (1999-12-18). "Absinthe: what's your poison?". BMJ. 319 (7225). BMJ: 1590–1592. doi:10.1136/bmj.319.7225.1590. ISSN 0959-8138.
• Labrecque, Lauren I.; Warr, Garret M.; Labrecque, Joseph (2016). "Absinthe: an Exploration of the Role of Mythology and Ritual in Market Revival". Celebrating America’s Pastimes: Baseball, Hot Dogs, Apple Pie and Marketing?. Cham: Springer International Publishing. doi:10.1007/978-3-319-26647-3_67. ISBN 978-3-319-26646-6. ISSN 2363-6165.