<P> Originally, people chewed sugarcane raw to extract its sweetness . Indians discovered how to crystallize sugar during the Gupta dynasty, around 350 AD . </P> <P> Indian sailors, consumers of clarified butter and sugar, carried sugar by various trade routes . Traveling Buddhist monks brought sugar crystallization methods to China . During the reign of Harsha (r . 606--647) in North India, Indian envoys in Tang China taught sugarcane cultivation methods after Emperor Taizong of Tang (r . 626--649) made his interest in sugar known, and China soon established its first sugarcane cultivation in the seventh century . Chinese documents confirm at least two missions to India, initiated in 647 AD, for obtaining technology for sugar - refining . In South Asia, the Middle East and China, sugar became a staple of cooking and desserts . In the year 1792, sugar rose by degrees to an enormous price in Great Britain . The East India Company was then called upon to lend their assistance to help in the lowering of the price of sugar . On 15 March 1792, his Majesty's Ministers to the British Parliament, presented a report related to the production of refined sugar in British India . Lieutenant J. Paterson, of the Bengal establishment, reported that refined sugar could be produced in India with many superior advantages, and a lot more cheaply than in the West Indies . </P> <P> Early refining methods involved grinding or pounding the cane in order to extract the juice, and then boiling down the juice or drying it in the sun to yield sugary solids that looked like gravel . The Sanskrit word for "sugar" (sharkara) also means "gravel" or "sand". Similarly, the Chinese use the term "gravel sugar" (Traditional Chinese: 砂糖) for what the West knows as "table sugar". </P> <P> There are records of knowledge of sugar among the ancient Greeks and Romans, but only as an imported medicine, and not as a food . For example, the Greek physician Dioscorides in the 1st century (AD) wrote: "There is a kind of coalesced honey called sakcharon (i.e. sugar) found in reeds in India and Eudaimon Arabia (i.e. Yemen) similar in consistency to salt and brittle enough to be broken between the teeth like salt . It is good dissolved in water for the intestines and stomach, and (can be) taken as a drink to help (relieve) a painful bladder and kidneys ." Pliny the Elder, a 1st - century (AD) Roman, also described sugar as medicinal: "Sugar is made in Arabia as well, but Indian sugar is better . It is a kind of honey found in cane, white as gum, and it crunches between the teeth . It comes in lumps the size of a hazelnut . Sugar is used only for medical purposes ." </P>

Where was sugar first cultivated in the new world