Though sugar cane has been cultivated and refined for thousands of years, sugar was not an accessible commodity until the 18th century when production expanded with Caribbean colonization. At the time it was crudely refined and primarily available in the European countries which had sugar producing colonies. Sugar became widely available once the refining process was improved by technology and processes became industrialized. Innovations in processing sugar have created a refining process that is very efficient at extracting crystallized sugar from cane juice.

Sugarcane is a fascinating plant that has had an extraordinary impact for centuries. Sugarcane’s unique quality is that it stores sucrose within the fibers of its stalks which makes it one of the most concentrated sources of sugar. This has made sugarcane one of the most important crops in the world and the source of 80% of the world’s sugar.

Panama City is the oldest, continually occupied European settlement on the Pacific Coast of the Americas.