Did You Know: The History of Hops Bread 
Brothers, Horatio and John Alfred Rapsey, left England to seek their fortunes. By 1845, the two were in Port of Spain, operating a tailor’s shop from a building on Edward St. where John Alfred died in 1853 from yellow fever.
Horatio left tailoring and opened a bakery at 62 Queen St, Port of Spain, later moving to 9 Frederick St. He married an English lady who bore him three sons. John Alfred (born in the same year his namesake uncle died-1853) inherited the bakery after his father, Horatio Snr. died in 1892.
 John Alfred is credited with adopting an old technique he observed among the French Creole kitchens of Trinidad. This involved leavening a dough roll with an extract of the male hop flower which gave it an unusual crust and size. Originally, the loaves were baked wrapped in green banana leaves and then baked. Often, the finished bread would be delivered with dried banana leaf still stuck to it.
Thus hops bread began to be commercially baked around 1893 and with each loaf being sold at a penny apiece (day-old loaves being sold in front the bakery for halfpenny). Because of the price, hops bread was originally known as ‘penny loaves’ and was affordable to most.
 Rapsey is also credited with either inventing or popularizing the ‘biscuit-cake’. A biscuit soaked in milk and then sprinkled with sugar thus producing another Trini classic known as "milk cake".
 In 1893, he also added a soft-drink factory to the business. Unsurprisingly, Rapsey became rich and in 1901 bought the entire Aranguez estate for $18,000 where he continued sugar cultivation, but also raised excellent cattle and produced excellent cheese and milk which were sold from the bakery and was also delivered to consumers packed in ice in a horsedrawn van and later, one of the earliest motor-trucks in the island.
John Alfred purchased the old home of the Zurcher family, Blarney, near to Maraval which was a magnificent house he renamed Ellerslie. John Alfred died in 1912 but his widow and children continued to run Aranguez estate, with emphasis on housing development rather than agriculture. The bakery was also closed in 1928.
Today, the Rapseys still maintain an interest in Aranguez estate, although most of the lands have now been sold or leased. On Mrs. M.A. Rapsey’s death in 1943 the grand house was demolished and the lands developed into what is now known as “Ellerslie Park” which was originally called ‘Champs Elysées’ – the Elysian Fields, and not “Ellerslie”.