John Cadbury was the fifth child and third son of Richard Tapper Cadbury, a draper, of Birmingham. He was educated at Joseph Crosfields Quaker School at Hartshill. In 1816 he was apprenticed to Quaker John Cudworth of Leeds to learn the retail tea trade. It is said that he stood out from the other Yorkshire boys in his plain Quaker dress and sober manner. His employers had a high opinion of him and left the business in his charge when they had to travel. They gave him an encyclopaedia when he left to work in the bonded tea house of Sanderson Fox in London. Here he visited the East India Company warehouses and saw the trade in tea, coffee and cocoa. He wrote to his father and said that he could see a potential for cocoa, but was as yet not sure what it was.
In 1824 his father gave him a sum of money and he decided to set up as a tea dealer and coffee roaster, in Bull Street, Birmingham. His shop was original in several ways, and attracted many curious visitors. its plate glass window was made up of several small panes of glass set in mahogany frames, never before seen in Birmingham. Inside the shop he had a Chinese Clerk who wore Oriental dress and there were large blue Chinese vases and Oriental chests and figures. Once inside the shop there was always a rich aroma of roasting coffee and chocolate, and many fine products to buy. Customers' attention was particularly drawn to a ‘most nutritious beverage for breakfast’ made from cocoa nibs that John prepared using a pestle and mortar. The shop thrived, and he had many wealthy customers including members of the Lloyds banking family.
John’s interest in cocoa grew and he decided to open a factory in 1831. Here he continued to experiment with the production of different types of cocoa. The earliest extant price list dated 1842 shows sixteen varieties of drinking chocolate and eleven cocoas. The product could be bought as pressed cakes, flakes, nibs and powder.
