Who invented the sugar cube, and when did it happen?

He began sugar cube production after being granted a five-year patent for the process on January 23, 1843. Henry Tate of Tate & Lyle was another early manufacturer of sugar cubes at his refineries in Liverpool and London. Tate purchased a patent for sugar cube manufacture from German Eugen Langen, who in 1872 had invented a different method of processing of sugar cubes.

Jakub Krystof Rad’s innovation was to use a press to make the cubes, and he soon presented a box of them to his wife. He patented this specialized press in 1843.

The Rads might well be the Pierre and Marie Curie of beverage-sweetening, but it took decades before the sugar cube became widespread in Europe. A German named Eugen Langen reinvented the cube for the factory of the 1870s — the molten sugar was spun in a centrifuge and then sawed into small pieces.