Craft Chocolate New Year’s Resolutions

First and foremost, Happy New Year! And we at Cocoa Runners are wishing you a year full of craft chocolate.

Secondly, we’d love for craft chocolate to be part of your New Year’s Resolutions – and as a small incentive, we’ve started with the history of New Year resolutions (spoiler alert: they’ve only been kicked off in January for less than half their 4,000 year history). We’ve also made a few suggestions as to how to make craft chocolate, and giving thanks to farmers and makers, part of your resolutions for 2024.

Craft chocolate offers a fantastic (and very enjoyable) way to work towards your goals this year – whether they are related to health, the environment, or your own social impact. It’s a simple choice you can make which makes a huge difference. So we’d also like to ask you for your support to spread the word and help more people to discover the world of craft chocolate, and support all the fantastic makers and cocoa farmers.

The history of New Year’s resolutions

We’ve been making New Year’s resolutions for over 4,000 years – back as far as the Ancient Babylonians. As part of their 12 day festival of Akitu, the Babylonians would make individual commitments for the new year, which would eventually evolve into what we now call resolutions. Akitu marked the start of the farming season, with crops being planted – and commenced with the vernal equinox (i.e. mid March). Appropriately, many of the records we have of individual commitments concern returning any farm equipment that was borrowed.

The Romans adopted the Babylonian calendar, new year and tradition of “resolutions’ – with their new year initially starting with the ides of March. However, Julius Caesar, in 46 BC, decided to move the start of the new year to January 1st. His reasons for this are still debated. Some suggest it was a means to exert political control and uniformity across the Roman Empire. Others suggest that it was a way to synchronise the calendar year with the consular year, as new Roman consuls started on January 1st. And it may even be that Caesar liked the way that January, named after the god Janus – who looked both forward and backward – was appropriate to mark a new year. Whatever the reason, the ides of march arguably had the last laugh, with Caesar being assassinated on the ides of March in 44BC.

The changing nature of New Year’s resolutions

Europe – and much of the rest of the world – has gradually fallen into line, with January 1st for many of us marking the start of a new year. And many of us continue to make New Year’s resolutions. Over time, these have changed somewhat. For example, in mediaeval times, knights would renew their vows of chivalry by placing their hands on a peacock and make an annual “Peacock Vow”. Moving on a few hundred years, John Wesley – the founder of Methodism – launched the Covenant Renewal Service in 1740. The service became commonly known as “Watch Night” and was held on New Year’s Eve or New Year’s Day, involving hymns, scriptural readings and a calmer approach to the otherwise raucous parties of 18th century new years. It included readings from Scriptures, hymns and a more sedate and religious alternative to the raucous celebrations commonly associated with New Year. One key aspect of Watch Night was the making of collective and individual resolutions. And it may well be this habit that led to the emergence of today’s New Year’s Resolutions.

Making and maintaining resolutions

Surprisingly, most people don’t make new year’s resolutions – less than 40% of Americans, and less than 20% of Britains. Of those people making resolutions, the most common (40-50%) are around exercise. Sadly, very few people manage to stick to their resolutions – for example, the exercise app Strava suggests that barely a third of us make it through the first month and even has anointed the second Friday of the month as “Quitters” day.

Some easier to keep resolutions

There is tonnes of advice on how to stick to any New Year’s resolution – setting reasonable goals, preparing for them, doing them with friends to spur motivation, making sure they are fun, etc.

And we’d like to suggest a few for craft chocolate that we hope are social, relatively easy and fun. We’d love you to add your own in the comments section below on the blog, and keep us updated on your progress:

• Share some craft chocolate with someone who hasn’t yet been fortunate enough to savour the delights of great beans and a great bar – ideally one a month (or week, or quarter, or whatever!)
• … on a related note, invite them to an in person or virtual tasting! Use the code CRNYIPVT15 for a small discount on the in person tastings (and we’ve just added a new one on the 24th January after our first two for 2024 sold out) or our virtual tasting kits
• Give thanks to the maker and grower for any bar you have the chance to savour by investigating where the beans are grown, and how bar is crafted, by reading the label (See here for more hints .. and check our website for more on farmers, makers, etc, for all the 1000+ bars we sell)
• At least once a week (or month, or any other period), compare and savour 2-3 bars with a colleague, friend or family member .. and don’t forget to use the tasting wave to get the most out of your tasting experience (see here)

Hopefully this means that you’ll be one of the 10% who actually “keeps” their new year’s resolution this year .. and you can have fun, and do the world a favour, by sharing and savouring some craft chocolate that tastes better, is better for you, better for the farmers and better for the planet.

Happy New Year!

Spencer

PS – you are also just in time to order a fresh batch of Square Mile Coffee, and five craft chocolates, and join in our Virtual Square Mile Coffee tasting on 20th January. See here for details.

Sources and further reading:

https://www.history.co.uk/articles/the-history-of-new-years-resolutions

https://theconversation.com/where-did-the-new-years-resolution-come-from-well-weve-been-making-them-for-4-000-years-196661 

https://www.almanac.com/history-of-new-years-resolutions

https://insideoutmastery.com/new-years-resolution-statistics/ 

https://www.forbes.com/uk/advisor/life-insurance/new-years-resolution-statistics/