How it began
Jakub Kryštof Rad, a native of Rheinfelden in Switzerland, came from Vienna in 1840 to direct a sugar refinery in Dačice, the first refinery of its kind in Moravia. In the summer of 1841 his wife Juliana cut her finger while breaking up a sugar loaf and asked him to find something better. She is said to have proposed small units that would be easy to count and store. Rad built a press and a few months later gave her a box of 350 white and red cubes. He received a privilege to make cube sugar on January 23, 1843.
Before it existed
Sugar was sold in large, hard loaves. They were awkward to pack and were often damaged in transport. At home people had to scrape sugar off the loaf or cut off random pieces. It was not possible to cut an exact amount, the work caused waste, and accidents with the cutting tools were common.
How it works
Sugar powder cut from white loaves that were not fully dry was sieved and spread on a brass plate with 400 square holes, which lay on a second, plain brass plate. Both plates went under a press. Forming pieces on the press head were driven into the holes, which reduced the volume of the sugar by half. The cubes were then pushed out onto a wooden board and left in a drying house for 10 to 12 hours before being packed in one-pound parcels.
How it spread
The first cubes from the production line reached the market in the autumn of 1843. The Dačice refinery sold them under the name "tea sugar," and they soon appeared in Vienna. The patent rights were soon bought by Prussia, Saxony, Bavaria, Switzerland and England.
Who pushed back
The invention did not save the business. The refinery's finances worsened, Rad left Dačice in 1846 with his wife and children, and production stopped in 1852. Rad's name was forgotten, and for a time the invention was credited to others. Historical research in the 1930s identified him as the inventor.
Where it stands today
Sugar refineries around the world make cube sugar. A granite memorial to the sugar cube was built in Dačice in 1983, and a plaque was placed on the old refinery building in 2003. The Dačice Municipal Museum keeps a permanent exhibition on the making of the sugar cube.
