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Title: Cocoa and Chocolate
Their History from Plantation to Consumer
Author: Arthur W. Knapp
Release Date: August 18, 2006 [EBook #19073]
Language: English
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COCOA AND CHOCOLATE
_Their History from Plantation to Consumer_
By
ARTHUR W. KNAPP
B. Sc. (B'ham.), F.I.C., B. Sc. (Lond.) Member of the Society of
Public Analysts; Member of the Society of Chemical Industry; Fellow
of the Institute of Hygiene. Research Chemist to Messrs. Cadbury
Bros., Ltd.
LONDON
CHAPMAN AND HALL, LTD.
1920
PREFACE
Although there are several excellent scientific works dealing in a
detailed manner with the cacao bean and its products from the various
view points of the technician, there is no comprehensive modern work
written for the general reader. Until that appears, I offer this little
book, which attempts to cover lightly but accurately the whole ground,
including the history of cacao, its cultivation and manufacture. This is
a small book in which to treat of so large a subject, and to avoid
prolixity I have had to generalise. This is a dangerous practice, for
what is gained in brevity is too often lost in accuracy: brevity may be
always the soul of wit, it is rarely the body of truth. The expert will
find that I have considered him in that I have given attention to recent
developments, and if I have talked of the methods peculiar to one place
as though they applied to the whole world, I ask him to consider me by
supplying the inevitable variations and exceptions himself.
The book, though short, has taken me a long time to write, having been
written in the brief breathing spaces of a busy life, and it would never
have been completed but for the encouragement I received from Messrs.
Cadbury Bros., Ltd., who aided me in every possible way. I am
particularly indebted to the present Lord Mayor of Birmingham, Mr. W.A.
Cadbury, for advice and criticism, and to Mr. Walter Barrow for reading
the proofs. The members of the staff to whom I am indebted are Mr. W.
Pickard, Mr. E.J. Organ, Mr. T.B. Rogers; also Mr. A. Hackett, for whom
the diagrams in the manufacturing section were originally made by Mr.
J.W. Richards. I am grateful to Messrs. J.S. Fry and Sons, Limited, for
information and photographs. In one or two cases I do not know whom to
thank for the photographs, which have been culled from many sources. I
have much pleasure in thanking the following: Mr. R. Whymper for a large
number of Trinidad photos; the Director of the Imperial Institute and
Mr. John Murray for permission to use three illustrations from the
Imperial Institute series of handbooks to the Commercial Resources of
the Tropics; M. Ed. Leplae, Director-General of Agriculture, Belgium,
for several photos, the blocks of which were kindly supplied by Mr. H.
Hamel Smith, of _Tropical Life_; Messrs. Macmillan and Co. for five
reproductions from C.J.J. van Hall's book on _Cocoa_; and _West Africa_
for four illustrations of the Gold Coast.
The photographs reproduced on pages 2, 23, 39, 47, 49 and 71 are by
Jacobson of Trinidad, on pages 85 and 86 by Underwood & Underwood of
London, and on page 41 by Mrs. Stanhope Lovell of Trinidad.
The industry with which this book deals is changing slowly from an art
to a science. It is in a transition period (it is one of the humours of
any live industry that it is always in a transition period). There are
many indications of scientific progress in cacao cultivation; and now
that, in addition to the experimental and research departments attached
to the principal firms, a Research Association has been formed for the
cocoa and chocolate industry, the increased amount of diffused
scientific knowledge of cocoa and chocolate manufacture should give rise
to interesting developments.
A.W. KNAPP.
Birmingham, _February, 1920._
CONTENTS
PAGE
PREFACE v
INTRODUCTION 1
CHAPTER I
COCOA AND CHOCOLATE--A SKETCH OF THEIR HISTORY 5
CHAPTER II
CACAO AND ITS CULTIVATION 17
CHAPTER III
HARVESTING AND PREPARATION FOR THE MARKET 45
With a dialogue on "The Kind of Cacao the Manufacturers Like."
CHAPTER IV
CACAO PRODUCTION AND SALE 81
With notes on the chief producing areas, cacao markets, and the
planter's life
CHAPTER V
THE MANUFACTURE OF COCOA AND CHOCOLATE 119
CHAPTER VI
THE MANUFACTURE OF CHOCOLATE 139
CHAPTER VII
BY-PRODUCTS OF THE COCOA AND CHOCOLATE INDUSTRY 157
(_a_) Cacao Butter, (_b_) Cacao Shell
CHAPTER VIII
THE COMPOSITION AND FOOD VALUE OF COCOA AND CHOCOLATE 165
(including Milk Chocolate)
CHAPTER IX
ADULTERATION, AND THE NEED FOR DEFINITIONS 179
CHAPTER X
THE CONSUMPTION OF CACAO 183
BIBLIOGRAPHY 191
A List of the Important Books on Cocoa and Chocolate
from the earliest times to the present day.
INDEX 207
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
Cacao Pods
Old Drawing of an American Indian, with Chocolate Whisk, etc.
Native American Indians Roasting the Beans, etc.
Ancient Mexican Drinking Cups
Cacao Tree, with Pods and Leaves
Cacao Tree, shewing Pods Growing from Trunk
Flowers and Fruits on main branches of a Cacao Tree
Cacao Pods
Cut Pod, revealing the White Pulp round the Beans
Cacao Pods, shewing Beans inside
Drawing of Typical Pods illustrating varieties
Tropical Forest, Trinidad
Characteristic Root System of the Cacao Tree
Nursery with the Young Cacao Plants in Baskets, Java
Planting Cacao from Young Seedlings in Bamboo Pots, Trinidad
Cacao in its Fourth Year
Copy of an Old Engraving shewing the Cacao Tree, and a tree shading it
Cacao Trees shaded by Kapok, Java
Cacao Trees shaded by Bois Immortel, Trinidad
Cacao Tree with Suckers
Cutlassing
Common Types of Cacao Pickers
Gathering Cacao Pods, Trinidad
Collecting Cacao Pods into a Heap
Men Breaking Pods, etc.
Sweating Boxes, Trinidad
Fermenting Boxes, Java
Charging Cacao on to Trucks in the Plantation, San Thomé
Cacao in the Fermenting Trucks, San Thomé
Tray-barrow for Drying Small Quantities
Spreading the Cacao Beans on mats to dry, Ceylon
Drying Trays, Grenada
"Hamel Smith" Rotary Dryer
Drying Platforms with Sliding Roofs, Trinidad
Cacao Drying Platforms, San Thomé
Washing the Beans, Ceylon
Claying Cacao Beans, Trinidad
Sorting Cacao Beans, Java
Diagram: World's Cacao Production
MAP of the World, with only Cacao-Producing Areas marked
Raking Cacao Beans on the Driers, Ecuador
Gathering Cacao Pods, Ecuador
Sorting Cacao for Shipment, Ecuador
MAP of South America and the West Indies
Workers on a Cacao Plantation
MAP of Africa, with only Cacao-Producing Areas marked
Foreshore at Accra, with Stacks of Cacao ready for Shipment
Carriers conveying Bags of Cacao to Surf Boats, Accra
Crossing the River, Gold Coast
Drying Cacao Beans, Gold Coast
Shooting Cacao from the Road to the Beach, Accra
Rolling Cacao, Gold Coast
Rolling Cacao, Gold Coast
Carrying Cacao to the Railway Station, Gold Coast
Wagon Loads of Cacao being taken from Depot to the Beach, Accra
The Buildings of the Boa Entrada Cacao Estate, San Thomé
Drying Cacao, San Thomé
Barrel Rolling, Gold Coast
Bagging Cacao, Gold Coast
Surf Boats by the Side of the Ocean Liner, Accra
Bagging Cacao Beans for Shipment, Trinidad
Transferring Bags of Cacao to Lighters, Trinidad
Diagram showing Variation in Price of Cacao Beans, 1913-1919
Group of Workers on Cacao Estate
Carting Cacao to Railway Station, Ceylon
The Carenage, Grenada
Early Factory Methods
Women Grinding Chocolate
Cacao Bean Warehouse
Cacao Bean Sorting and Cleaning Machine
Diagram of Cacao Bean Cleaning Machine
Section through Gas Heated Cacao Roaster
Roasting Cacao Beans
Cacao Bean, Shell and Germ
Section through Kibbling Cones and Germ Screens
Section through Winnowing Machine
Cacao Grinding
Section through Grinding Stones
A Cacao Press
Section through Cacao Press-pot and Ram-plate
Chocolate Mélangeur
Plan of Chocolate Mélangeur
Chocolate Refining Machine
Grinding Cacao Nib and Sugar
Section through Chocolate Grinding Rolls
"Conche" Machines
Section through "Conche" Machine
Machines for Mixing or "Conching" Chocolate
Chocolate Shaking Table
Girls Covering or Dipping Cremes, etc.
The Enrober
A Confectionery Room
Factory at which Milk is Evaporated for Milk Chocolate Manufacture
Cocoa and Chocolate Despatch Deck
Boxing Chocolates
Packing Chocolates
Factory at which Milk is Evaporated for Milk Chocolate Manufacture
Cacao Pods, Leaves and Flowers
INTRODUCTION
In a few short chapters I propose to give a plain account of the
production of cocoa and chocolate. I assume that the reader is not a
specialist and knows little or nothing of the subject, and hence both
the style of writing and the treatment of the subject will be simple. At
the same time, I assume that the reader desires a full and accurate
account, and not a vague story in which the difficulties are ignored. I
hope that, as a result of this method of dealing with my subject, even
experts will find much in the book that is of interest and value. After
a brief survey of the history of cocoa and chocolate, I shall begin with
the growing of the cacao bean, and follow the _cacao_ in its career
until it becomes the finished product ready for consumption.
_Cacao or Cocoa?_
The reader will have noted above the spelling "cacao," and to those who
think it curious, I would say that I do not use this spelling from
pedantry. It is an imitation of the word which the Mexicans used for
this commodity as early as 1500, and when spoken by Europeans is apt to
sound like the howl of a dog. The Mexicans called the tree from which
cacao is obtained _cacauatl_. When the great Swedish scientist Linnaeus,
the father of botany, was naming and classifying (about 1735) the trees
and plants known in his time, he christened it _Theobroma Cacao_, by
which name it is called by botanists to this day. Theo-broma is Greek
for "Food of the Gods." Why Linnaeus paid this extraordinary compliment
to cacao is obscure, but it has been suggested that he was inordinately
fond of the beverage prepared from it--the cup which both cheers and
satisfies. It will be seen from the above that the species-name is
cacao, and one can understand that Englishmen, finding it difficult to
get their insular lips round this outlandish word, lazily called it
cocoa.
[Illustration: CACAO PODS (Amelonado type) in various states of growth
and ripeness.]
In this book I shall use the words cacao, cocoa, and chocolate as
follows:
_Cacao_, when I refer to the cacao tree, the cacao pod, or the cacao
bean or seed. By the single word, cacao, I imply the raw product, cacao
beans, in bulk.
_Cocoa_, when I refer to the powder manufactured from the roasted bean
by pressing out part of the butter. The word is too well established to
be changed, even if one wished it. As we shall see later (in the
chapter on adulteration) it has come legally to have a very definite
significance. If this method of distinguishing between cacao and cocoa
were the accepted practice, the perturbation which occurred in the
public mind during the war (in 1916), as to whether manufacturers were
exporting "cocoa" to neutral countries, would not have arisen. It should
have been spelled "cacao," for the statements referred to the raw beans
and not to the manufactured beverage. Had this been done, it would have
been unnecessary for the manufacturers to point out that cocoa powder
was not being so exported, and that they naturally did not sell the raw
cacao bean.
_Chocolate._--This word is given a somewhat wider meaning. It signifies
any preparation of roasted cacao beans without abstraction of butter. It
practically always contains sugar and added cacao butter, and is
generally prepared in moulded form. It is used either for eating or
drinking.
_Cacao Beans and Coconuts._
In old manuscripts the word cacao is spelled in all manner of ways, but
_cocoa_ survived them all. This curious inversion, _cocoa_, is to be
regretted, for it has led to a confusion which could not otherwise have
arisen. But for this spelling no one would have dreamed of confusing the
totally unrelated bodies, cacao and the milky coconut. (You note that I
spell it "coconut," not "cocoanut," for the name is derived from the
Spanish "coco," "grinning face," or bugbear for frightening children,
and was given to the nut because the three scars at the broad end of the
nut resemble a grotesque face). To make confusion worse confounded the
old writers referred to cacao _seeds_ as cocoa _nuts_ (as for example,
in _The Humble Memorial of Joseph Fry_, quoted in the chapter on
history), but, as in appearance cacao seeds resemble _beans_, they are
now usually spoken of as beans. The distinction between cacao and the
coconut may be summarised thus:
Cacao. Coconut.
Botanical Name Theobroma Cacao Cocos nucifera Palm
Tree Palm
Fruit Cacao pod, containing Coconut, which with outer
many seeds (cacao beans) fibre is as large as a
man's head
Products Cocoa Broken coconut (copra)
Chocolate Coconut matting
Fatty Constituent Cacao butter Coconut oil
CHAPTER I
COCOA AND CHOCOLATE--A SKETCH OF THEIR HISTORY
Did time and space allow, there is much to be told on the
romantic side of chocolate, of its divine origin, of the
bloody wars and brave exploits of the Spaniards who conquered
Mexico and were the first to introduce cacao into Europe,
tales almost too thrilling to be believed, of the intrigues
of the Spanish Court, and of celebrities who met and sipped
their chocolate in the parlours of the coffee and chocolate
houses so fashionable in the seventeenth and eighteenth
centuries.
_Cocoa and Chocolate_ (Whymper).
On opening a cacao pod, it is seen to be full of beans surrounded by a
fruity pulp, and whilst the pulp is very pleasant to taste, the beans
themselves are uninviting, so that doubtless the beans were always
thrown away until ... someone tried roasting them. One pictures this
"someone," a pre-historic Aztec with swart skin, sniffing the aromatic
fume coming from the roasting beans, and thinking that beans which
smelled so appetising must be good to consume. The name of the man who
discovered the use of cacao must be written in some early chapter of the
history of man, but it is blurred and unreadable: all we know is that he
was an inhabitant of the New World and probably of Central America.
_Original Home of Cacao._
The corner of the earth where the cacao tree originally grew, and still
grows wild to-day, is the country watered by the mighty Amazon and the
Orinoco. This is the very region in which Orellano, the Spanish
adventurer, said that he had truly seen El Dorado, which he described as
a City of Gold, roofed with gold, and standing by a lake with golden
sands. In reality, El Dorado was nothing but a vision, a vision that for
a hundred years fascinated all manner of dreamers and adventurers from
Sir Walter Raleigh downwards, so that many braved great hardships in
search of it, groped through the forests where the cacao tree grew, and
returned to Europe feeling they had failed. To our eyes they were not
entirely unsuccessful, for whilst they failed to find a city of gold,
they discovered the home of the golden pod.
[Illustration: OLD DRAWING OF AN AMERICAN INDIAN; AT HIS FEET A
CHOCOLATE-CUP, CHOCOLATE-POT, AND CHOCOLATE WHISK OR "MOLINET."
(From _Traitez Nouveaux et Curieux du Café, du Thé, et du Chocolate_.
Dufour, 1693).]
_Montezuma--the First Great Patron of Chocolate._
When Columbus discovered the New World he brought back with him to
Europe many new and curious things, one of which was cacao. Some years
later, in 1519, the Spanish conquistador, Cortes, landed in Mexico,
marched into the interior and discovered to his surprise, not the huts
of savages, but a beautiful city, with palaces and museums. This city
was the capital of the Aztecs, a remarkable people, notable alike for
their ancient civilisation and their wealth. Their national drink was
chocolate, and Montezuma, their Emperor, who lived in a state of
luxurious magnificence, "took no other beverage than the chocolatl, a
potation of chocolate, flavoured with vanilla and other spices, and so
prepared as to be reduced to a froth of the consistency of honey, which
gradually dissolved in the mouth and was taken cold. This beverage if so
it could be called, was served in golden goblets, with spoons of the
same metal or tortoise-shell finely wrought. The Emperor was exceedingly
fond of it, to judge from the quantity--no less than fifty jars or
pitchers being prepared for his own daily consumption: two thousand more
were allowed for that of his household."[1] It is curious that Montezuma
took no other beverage than chocolate, especially if it be true that the
Aztecs also invented that fascinating drink, the cocktail (xoc-tl). How
long this ancient people, students of the mysteries of culinary science,
had known the art of preparing a drink from cacao, is not known, but it
is evident that the cultivation of cacao received great attention in
these parts, for if we read down the list of the tributes paid by
different cities to the Lords of Mexico, we find "20 chests of ground
chocolate, 20 bags of gold dust," again "80 loads of red chocolate, 20
lip-jewels of clear amber," and yet again "200 loads of chocolate."
[1] Prescott's _Conquest of Mexico_.
Another people that share with the Aztecs the honour of being the first
great cultivators of cacao are the Incas of Peru, that wonderful nation
that knew not poverty.
_The Fascination of Chocolate._
That chocolate charmed the ladies of Mexico in the seventeenth century
(even as it charms the ladies of England to-day) is shown by a story
which Gage relates in his _New Survey of the West Indias_ (1648). He
tells us that at Chiapa, southward from Mexico, the women used to
interrupt both sermon and mass by having their maids bring them a cup of
hot chocolate; and when the Bishop, after fair warning, excommunicated
them for this presumption, they changed their church. The Bishop, he
adds, was poisoned for his pains.
_Cacao Beans as Money._
Cacao was used by the Aztecs not only for the preparation of a beverage,
but also as a circulating medium of exchange. For example, one could
purchase a "tolerably good slave" for 100 beans. We read that: "Their
currency consisted of transparent quills of gold dust, of bits of tin
cut in the form of a T, and of bags of cacao containing a specified
number of grains." "Blessed money," exclaims Peter Martyr, "which
exempts its possessor from avarice, since it cannot be long hoarded, nor
hidden underground!"
_Derivation of Chocolate._
The word was derived from the Mexican _chocolatl_. The Mexicans used to
froth their chocolatl with curious whisks made specially for the purpose
(see page 6). Thomas Gage suggests that _choco, choco, choco_ is a
vocal representation of the sound made by stirring chocolate. The suffix
_atl_ means water. According to Mr. W.J. Gordon, we owe the name of
chocolate to a misprint. He states that Joseph Acosta, who wrote as
early as 1604 of chocolatl, was made by the printer to write
_chocolaté_, from which the English eliminated the accent, and the
French the final letter.
[Illustration: NATIVE AMERICAN INDIANS ROASTING AND GRINDING THE BEANS,
AND MIXING THE CHOCOLATE IN A JUG WITH A WHISK. (From Ogilvy's
_America_, 1671)]
_First Cacao in Europe._
The Spanish discoverers of the New World brought home to Spain
quantities of cacao, which the curious tasted. We may conclude that they
drank the preparation cold, as Montezuma did, _hot_ chocolate being a
later invention. The new drink, eagerly sought by some, did not meet
with universal approval, and, as was natural, the most diverse opinions
existed as to the pleasantness and wholesomeness of the beverage when it
was first known. Thus Joseph Acosta (1604) wrote: "The chief use of this
cocoa is in a drincke which they call Chocholaté, whereof they make
great account, foolishly and without reason; for it is loathsome to such
as are not acquainted with it, having a skumme or frothe that is very
unpleasant to taste, if they be not well conceited thereof. Yet it is a
drincke very much esteemed among the Indians, whereof they feast noble
men as they passe through their country. The Spaniards, both men and
women, that are accustomed to the country are very greedy of this
chocholaté." It is not impossible that the English, with the defeat of
the Armada fresh in memory, were at first contemptuous of this "Spanish"
drink. Certain it is, that when British sea-rovers like Drake and
Frobisher, captured Spanish galleons on the high seas, and on searching
their holds for treasure, found bags of cacao, they flung them overboard
in scorn. In considering this scorn of cacao, shown alike by British
buccaneers and Dutch corsairs, together with the critical air of Joseph
Acosta, we should remember that the original chocolatl of the Mexicans
consisted of a mixture of maize and cacao with hot spices like chillies,
and contained no sugar. In this condition few inhabitants of the
temperate zone could relish it. It however only needed one thing, the
addition of sugar, and the introduction of this marked the beginning of
its European popularity. The Spaniards were the first to manufacture and
drink chocolate in any quantity. To this day they serve it in the old
style--thick as porridge and pungent with spices. They endeavoured to
keep secret the method of preparation, and, without success, to retain
the manufacture as a monopoly. Chocolate was introduced into Italy by
Carletti, who praised it and spread the method of its manufacture
abroad. The new drink was introduced by monks from Spain into Germany
and France, and when in 1660 Maria Theresa, Infanta of Spain, married
Louis XIV, she made chocolate well known at the Court of France. She it
was of whom a French historian wrote that Maria Theresa had only two
passions--the king and chocolate.
Chocolate was advocated by the learned physicians of those times as a
cure for many diseases, and it was stated that Cardinal Richelieu had
been cured of general atrophy by its use.
From France the use of chocolate spread into England, where it began to
be drunk as a luxury by the aristocracy about the time of the
Commonwealth. It must have made some progress in public favour by 1673,
for in that year "a Lover of his Country" wrote in the _Harleian
Miscellany_ demanding its prohibition (along with brandy, rum, and tea)
on the ground that this imported article did no good and hindered the
consumption of English-grown barley and wheat. New things appeal to the
imaginative, and the absence of authentic knowledge concerning them
allows free play to the imagination--so it happened that in the early
days, whilst many writers vied with one another in writing glowing
panegyrics on cacao, a few thought it an evil thing. Thus, whilst it was
praised by many for its "wonderful faculty of quenching thirst,
allaying hectic heats, of nourishing and fattening the body," it was
seriously condemned by others as an inflamer of the passions!
_Chocolate Houses and Clubs._
"The drinking here of chocolate
Can make a fool a sophie."
In the spacious days of Queen Elizabeth, tea, coffee, and chocolate were
unknown save to travellers and savants, and the handmaidens of the good
queen drank beer with their breakfast. When Shakespeare and Ben Jonson
forgathered at the Mermaid Tavern, their winged words passed over
tankards of ale, but later other drinks became the usual accompaniment
of news, story, and discussion. In the sixteen-sixties there were no
strident newspapers to destroy one's equanimity, and the gossip of the
day began to be circulated and discussed over cups of tea, coffee, or
chocolate. The humorists, ever stirred by novelty, tilted, pen in hand,
at these new drinks: thus one rhymster described coffee as
"Syrrop of soot or essence of old shoes."
The first coffee-house in London was started in St. Michael's Alley,
Cornhill, in 1652 (when coffee was seven shillings a pound); the first
tea-house was opened in Exchange Alley in 1657 (when tea was five
sovereigns a pound), and in the same year (with chocolate about ten to
fifteen shillings per pound) a Frenchman opened the first
chocolate-house in Queen's Head Alley, Bishopsgate Street. The rising
popularity of chocolate led to the starting of more of these chocolate
houses, at which one could sit and sip chocolate, or purchase the
commodity for preparation at home. Pepys' entry in his diary for 24th
November, 1664, contains: "To a coffee house to drink jocolatte, very
good." It is an artless entry, and yet one can almost hear him smacking
his lips. Silbermann says that "After the Restoration there were shops
in London for the sale of chocolate at ten shillings or fifteen
shillings per pound. Ozinda's chocolate house was full of aristocratic
consumers. Comedies, satirical essays, memoirs and private letters of
that age frequently mention it. The habit of using chocolate was deemed
a token of elegant and fashionable taste, and while the charms of this
beverage in the reigns of Queen Anne and George I. were so highly
esteemed by courtiers, by lords and ladies and fine gentlemen in the
polite world, the learned physicians extolled its medicinal virtues."
From the coffee house and its more aristocratic relative the chocolate
house, there developed a new feature in English social life--the Club.
As the years passed the Chocolate House remained a rendezvous, but the
character of its habitués changed from time to time. Thus one, famous in
the days of Queen Anne, and well known by its sign of the "Cocoa Tree,"
was at first the headquarters of the Jacobite party, and the resort of
Tories of the strictest school. It became later a noted gambling house
("The gamesters shook their elbows in White's and the chocolate houses
round Covent Garden," _National Review_, 1878), and ultimately developed
into a literary club, including amongst its members Gibbon, the
historian, and Byron, the poet.
_Tax on Cacao._
The growing consumption of chocolate did not escape the all-seeing eye
of the Chancellors of England. As early as 1660 we find amongst various
custom and excise duties granted to Charles II:
"For every gallon of chocolate, sherbet, and tea made and
sold, to be paid by the maker thereof ..... 8d."
Later the raw material was also made a source of revenue. In _The Humble
Memorial of Joseph Fry_, of Bristol, Maker of Chocolate, which was
addressed to the Lords Commissioners of the Treasury in 1776 (Messrs.
Fry and Sons are the oldest English firm of chocolate makers, having
been founded in 1728), we read that "Chocolate ... pays two shillings
and threepence per pound excise, besides about ten shillings per
hundredweight on the Cocoa Nuts from which it is made."
In 1784 a preferential customs rate was proposed in favour of our
Colonies. This they enjoyed for many years before 1853, when the uniform
rate, until recently in force, was introduced. This restrictive tariff
on foreign growths rose in 1803 to 5s. 10d. per pound, against 1s. 10d.
on cacao grown in British possessions. From this date it gradually
diminished. High duties hampered for many years the sale of cocoa, tea
and coffee, but in recent times these duties have been brought down to
more reasonable figures. For many years before 1915 the import duty was
1d. per pound on the raw cacao beans, 1d. per pound on cacao butter, and
2s. a hundredweight (less than a farthing a pound) on cacao shells or
husks. In the Budget of September, 1915, the above duties were increased
by fifty per cent. A further and greater increase was made in the Budget
of April, 1916, when cacao was made to pay a higher tax in Britain than
in any other country in the world. In 1919 Imperial preference was
introduced after a break of over sixty years, the duty on cocoa from
foreign countries being 3/4d. a pound more than that from British
Possessions.
_Duty on Cacao._
1855-1915. 1915. 1916. 1919.
Cacao beans per lb. 1d. 1-1/2d. 6d. 4-1/2d. foreign, 3-3/4d. British
Cacao butter per lb. 1d. 1-1/2d. 6d. 4-1/2d. foreign, 3-3/4d. British
Cacao shells per cwt. 2s. 3s. 12s. 6s. foreign, 5s. British
In considering this duty and its effect on the price of the finished
article, it should be remembered that there are substantial losses in
manufacture. Thus the beans are cleaned, which removes up to 0.5 per
cent.; roasted, which causes a loss by volatilisation of 7 per cent.;
and shelled, the husks being about 12 per cent. Therefore, the actual
yield of usable nib, which has to bear the whole duty, is about 80 per
cent. It may be well to add that the yield of cocoa powder is 48 per
cent. of the raw beans, or roughly, one pound of the raw product yields
half a pound of the finished article.
_Introduction of Cocoa Powder._
The drink "cocoa" as we know it to-day was not introduced until 1828.
Before this time the ground bean, mixed with sugar, was sold in cakes.
The beverage prepared from these chocolate cakes was very rich in
butter, and whilst the British Navy has always consumed it in this
condition (the sailors generally remove with a spoon the excess of
butter which floats to the top) it is a little heavy for less hardy
digestions. Van Houten (of the well-known Dutch house of that name) in
1828 invented a method of pressing out part of the butter, and thus
obtained a lighter, more appetising, and more easily assimilated
preparation. As the butter is useful in chocolate manufacture, this
process enabled the manufacturer to produce a less costly cocoa powder,
and thus the circle of consumers was widened. Messrs. Cadbury Bros., of
Birmingham, first sold their "cocoa essence" in 1866, and Messrs. Fry
and Sons, of Bristol, introduced a pure cocoa by pressing out part of
the butter in 1868.
_Growing Popularity of Cacao Preparations._
The incidence of import duties did not prevent the continuous increase
in the amount of cacao consumed in the British Isles. When Queen
Victoria came to the throne the cacao cleared for home consumption was
about four or five thousand tons, more than half of which was consumed
by the Navy. At the time of Queen Victoria's death it had increased to
four times this amount, and by 1915 it had reached nearly fifty
thousand tons. (For statistics of consumption, see p. 183).
* * * * *
This brief sketch of the history of cacao owes much to "Cocoa--all about
it," by Historicus (the pseudonym of the late Richard Cadbury). This
work is out of print, but those who are fortunate enough to be able to
consult it will find therein much that is curious and discursive.
[Illustration: ANCIENT MEXICAN DRINKING CUPS (British Museum)]
CHAPTER II
CACAO AND ITS CULTIVATION
O tree, upraised in far-off Mexico!
"_Ode to the Chocolate Tree_," 1664.
How seldom do we think, when we drink a cup of cocoa or eat some morsels
of chocolate, that our liking for these delicacies has set minds and
bodies at work all the world over! Many types of humanity have
contributed to their production. Picture in the mind's eye the graceful
coolie in the sun-saturated tropics, moving in the shade, cutting the
pods from the cacao tree; the deep-chested sailor helping to load from
lighters or surf-boats the precious bags of cacao into the hold of the
ocean liner; the skilful workman roasting the beans until they fill the
room with a fine aroma; and the girl with dexterous fingers packing the
cocoa or fashioning the chocolate in curious, and delicate forms. To the
black and brown races, the negroes and the East Indians, we owe a debt
for their work on tropical plantations, for the harder manual work would
be too arduous for Europeans unused to the heat of those regions.
_Climate Necessary._
Cacao can only grow at tropical temperatures, and when shielded from the
wind and unimpaired by drought. Enthusiasts, as a hobby, have grown the
tree under glass in England; it requires a warmer temperature than
either tea or coffee, and only after infinite care can one succeed in
getting the tree to flower and bear fruit. The mean temperature in the
countries in which it thrives is about 80 degrees F. in the shade, and
the average of the maximum temperatures is seldom more than 90 degrees
F., or the average of the minimum temperatures less than 70 degrees F.
The rainfall can be as low as 45 inches per annum, as in the Gold Coast,
or as high as 150 inches, as in Java, provided the fall is uniformly
distributed. The ideal spot is the secluded vale, and whilst in
Venezuela there are plantations up to 2000 feet above sea level, cacao
cannot generally be profitably cultivated above 1000 feet.
_Factors of Geographical Distribution._
Climate, soil, and manures determine the possible region of
cultivation--the extent to which the area is utilised depends on the
enterprise of man. The original home of cacao was the rich tropical
region, far-famed in Elizabethan days, that lies between the Amazon and
the Orinoco, and but for the enterprise of man it is doubtful if it
would have ever spread from this region. Monkeys often carry the beans
many miles--man, the master-monkey, has carried them round the world.
First the Indians spread cacao over the tropical belt of the American
continent and cultivated it as far North as Mexico. Then came the
Spanish explorers of the New World, who carried it from the mainland to
the adjacent West Indian islands. Cacao was planted by them in Trinidad
as early as 1525. Since that date it has been successfully introduced
into many a tropical island. It was an important day in the history of
Ceylon when Sir R. Horton, in 1834, had cacao plants brought to that
island from Trinidad. The carefully packed plants survived the ordeal of
a voyage of ten thousand miles. The most recent introduction is,
however, the most striking. About 1880 a native of the Gold Coast
obtained some beans, probably from Fernando Po. In 1891, the first bag
of cacao was exported; it weighed 80 pounds. In 1915, 24 years later,
the export from the Gold Coast was 120 million pounds.
[Illustration: CACAO TREE, WITH PODS AND LEAVES]
_The Cacao Tree._
Tropical vegetation appears so bizarre to the visitor from temperate
climes that in such surroundings the cacao tree seems almost
commonplace. It is in appearance as moderate and unpretentious as an
apple tree, though somewhat taller, being, when full grown, about
twenty feet high. It begins to bear in its fourth or fifth year. Smooth
in its early youth, as it gets older it becomes covered with little
bosses (cushions) from which many flowers spring. I saw one fellow, very
tall and gnarled, and with many pods on it; turning to the planter I
enquired "How old is that tree?" He replied, almost reverentially: "It's
a good deal older than I am; must be at least fifty years old." "It's
one of the tallest cacao trees I've seen. I wonder--." The planter
perceived my thought, and said: "I'll have it measured for you." It was
forty feet high. That was a tall one; usually they are not more than
half that height. The bark is reddish-grey, and may be partly hidden by
brown, grey and green patches of lichen. The bark is both beautiful and
quaint, but in the main the tree owes its beauty to its luxuriance of
prosperous leaves, and its quaintness to its pods.
[Illustration: CACAO TREE, SHOWING PODS GROWING FROM TRUNK.]
[Illustration: FLOWERS AND FRUITS ON MAIN BRANCHES OF A CACAO TREE.
(Reproduced from van Hall's _Cocoa_, by permission of Messrs. Macmillan
& Co.).]
_The Flowers, Leaves and Fruit._
Although cacao trees are not unlike the fruit trees of England, there
are differences which, when first one sees them, cause expressions of
surprise and pleasure to leap to the lips. One sees what one never saw
before, the fruit springing from the main trunk, quite close to the
ground. An old writer has explained that this is due to a wise
providence, because the pod is so heavy that if it hung from the end of
the branches it would fall off before it reached maturity. The old
writer talks of providence; a modern writer would see in the same facts
a simple example of evolution. On the same cacao tree every day of the
year may be found flowers, young podkins and mature pods side by side. I
say "found" advisedly--at the first glance one does not see the flowers
because they are so dainty and so small. The buds are the size of rice
grains, and the flowers are not more than half an inch across when the
petals are fully out. The flowers are pink or yellow, of wax-like
appearance, and have no odour. They were commonly stated to be
pollinated by thrips and other insects. Dr. von Faber of Java has
recently shown that whilst self-pollination is the rule, cross
fertilisation occurs between the flowers on adjacent or interlocking
trees. These graceful flowers are so small that one can walk through a
plantation without observing them, although an average tree will produce
six thousand blossoms in a year. Not more than one per cent. of these
will become fruit. Usually it takes six months for the bud to develop
into the mature fruit. The lovely mosses that grow on the stems and
branches are sometimes so thick that they have to be destroyed, or the
fragile cacao flower could not push its way through. Whilst the flowers
are small, the leaves are large, being as an average about a foot in
length and four inches in breadth. The cacao tree never appears naked,
save on the rare occasions when it is stripped by the wind, and the
leaves are green all the year round, save when they are red, if the
reader will pardon an Hibernianism. And indeed there is something
contrary in the crimson tint, for whilst we usually associate this with
old leaves about to fall, with the cacao, as with some rose trees, it is
the tint of the young leaves.
[Illustration: CACAO PODS.]
_The Cacao Pod._
The fruit, which hangs on a short thick stalk, may be anything in shape
from a melon to a stumpy, irregular cucumber, according to the botanic
variety. The intermediate shape is like a lemon, with furrows from end
to end. There are pods, called Calabacillo, smooth and ovate like a
calabash, and there are others, more rare, so "nobbly" that they are
well-named "Alligator." The pods vary in length from five to eleven
inches, "with here and there the great pod of all, the blood-red
_sangre-tora_." The colours of the pods are as brilliant as they are
various. They are rich and strong, and resemble those of the rind of the
pomegranate. One pod shows many shades of dull crimson, another grades
from gold to the yellow of leather, and yet another is all lack-lustre
pea-green. They may be likened to Chinese lanterns hanging in the woods.
One does not conclude from the appearance of the pod that the contents
are edible, any more than one would surmise that tea-leaves could be
used to produce a refreshing drink. I say as much to the planter, who
smiles. With one deft cut with his machete or cutlass, which hangs in a
leather scabbard by his side, the planter severs the pod from the tree,
and with another slash cuts the thick, almost woody rind and breaks open
the pod. There is disclosed a mass of some thirty or forty beans,
covered with juicy pulp. The inside of the rind and the mass of beans
are gleaming white, like melting snow. Sometimes the mass is pale
amethyst in colour. I perceive a pleasant odour resembling melon. Like
little Jack Horner, I put in my thumb and pull out a snow-white bean. It
is slippery to hold, so I put it in my mouth. The taste is sweet,
something between grape and melon. Inside this fruity coating is the
bean proper. From different pods we take beans and cut them in two, and
find that the colour of the bean varies from purple almost to white.
[Illustration: CUT POD, REVEALING THE WHITE PULP ROUND THE BEANS
(CEYLON.)]
[Illustration: CACAO PODS, SHEWING BEANS INSIDE.]
_Botanical Description._
Theobroma Cacao belongs to the family of the _Sterculiaceae_, and to the
same order as the Limes and Mallows. It is described in Strasburger's
admirable _Text-Book of Botany_ as follows:
"Family. _Sterculiaceae._
IMPORTANT GENERA. The most important plant is the Cocoa Tree
(_Theobroma Cacao_). It is a low tree with short-stalked,
firm, brittle, simple leaves of large size, oval shape, and
dark green colour. The young leaves are of a bright red
colour, and, as in many tropical trees, hang limply
downwards. The flowers are borne on the main stem or the
older branches, and arise from dormant axillary buds
(Cauliflory). Each petal is bulged up at the base, narrows
considerably above this, and ends in an expanded tip. The
form of the reddish flowers is thus somewhat urn-shaped with
five radiating points. The pentalocular ovary has numerous
ovules in each loculus. As the fruit develops, the soft
tissue of the septa extends between the single seeds; the
ripe fruit is thus unilocular and many-seeded. The seed-coat
is filled by the embryo, which has two large, folded, brittle
cotyledons."
The last sentence conveys an erroneous impression. The two cotyledons,
which form the seed, are not brittle when found in nature in the pod.
They are juicy and fleshy. And it is only after the seed has received
special treatment (fermentation and drying) to obtain the bean of
commerce, that it becomes brittle.
_Varieties of Theobroma Cacao._
As mentioned above, the pods and seeds of Theobroma Cacao trees show a
marked variation, and in every country the botanist has studied these
variations and classified the trees according to the shape and colour of
the pods and seeds. The existence of so many classifications has led to
a good deal of confusion, and we are indebted to Van Hall for the
simplest way of clearing up these difficulties. He accepts the
classification first given by Morris, dividing the trees into two
varieties--Criollo and Forastero:
[Illustration: DRAWINGS OF TYPICAL PODS, illustrating varieties.
CRIOLLO
FORASTERO
FORASTERO (CALABACILLO VARIETY)]
_Extremes of Characteristics._
_Criollo._ _Forastero._
(Old Red, Caracas, etc.) Grading from Cundeamor
(bottle-necked) to Calabacillo
(smooth).
_Pod walls._ Thin and warty. Thick and woody.
_Beans._ Large and plump. Small and flat.
White. Heliotrope to purple.
Sweet. Astringent.
The cacao of the criollo variety has pods the walls of which are thin
and warty, with ten distinct furrows. The seeds or beans are white as
ivory throughout, round and plump, and sweet to taste. The forastero
variety includes many sub-varieties, the kind most distinct from the
criollo having pods, the walls of which are thick and woody, the surface
smooth, the furrows indistinct, and the shape globular. The seeds in
these pods are purple in colour, flat in appearance, and bitter to
taste. This is a very convenient classification. Personally I believe it
would be possible to find pods varying by almost imperceptible
gradations from the finest, purest, criollo to the lowest form of
forastero (namely, calabacillo). The criollo yields the finest and
rarest kind of cacao, but as sometimes happens with refined types in
nature, it is a rather delicate tree, especially liable to canker and
bark diseases, and this accounts for the predominance of the forastero
in the cacao plantations of the world.
_The Cacao Plantation._
One can spend happy days on a cacao estate. "Are you going into the
cocoa?" they ask, just as in England we might enquire, "Are you going
into the corn?"
[Illustration: TROPICAL FOREST, TRINIDAD.
This has to be cleared before planting begins.]
Coconut plantations and sugar estates make a strong appeal to the
imagination, but for peaceful beauty they cannot compare with the cacao
plantation. True, coconut plantations are very lovely--the palms are so
graceful, the leaves against the sky so like a fine etching--but "the
slender coco's drooping crown of plumes" is altogether foreign to
English eyes. Sugar estates are generally marred by the prosaic factory
in the background. They are dead level plains, and the giant grass
affords no shade from the relentless sun. Whereas the leaves of the
cacao tree are large and numerous, so that even in the heat of the day,
it is comparatively cool and pleasant under the cacao.
Cacao plantations present in different countries every variety of
appearance--from that of a wild forest in which the greater portion of
the trees are cacao, to the tidy and orderly plantation. In some of the
Trinidad plantations the trees are planted in parallel lines twelve feet
apart, with a tree every twelve feet along the line; and as you push
your way through the plantation the apparently irregularly scattered
trees are seen to flash momentarily into long lines. In other parts of
the world, for example, in Grenada and Surinam, the ground may be kept
so tidy and free from weeds that they have the appearance of gardens.
_Clearing the Land._
When the planter has chosen a suitable site, an exercise requiring
skill, the forest has to be cleared. The felling of great trees and the
clearing of the wild tangle of undergrowth is arduous work. It is well
to leave the trees on the ridges for about sixty feet on either side,
and thus form a belt of trees to act as wind screen. Cacao trees are as
sensitive to a draught as some human beings, and these "_wind breaks_"
are often deliberately grown--Balata, Poui, Mango (Trinidad), Galba
(Grenada), Wild Pois Doux (Martinique), and other leafy trees being
suitable for this purpose.
_Suitable Soil._
It was for many years believed that if a tree were analysed the best
soil for its growth could at once be inferred and described, as it was
assumed that the best soil would be one containing the same elements in
similar proportions. This simple theory ignored the characteristic
powers of assimilation of the tree in question and the "digestibility"
of the soil constituents. However, it is agreed that soils rich in
potash and lime (e.g., those obtained by the decomposition of certain
volcanic rocks) are good for cacao. An open sandy or loamy alluvial soil
is considered ideal. The physical condition of the soil is equally
important: heavy clays or water-logged soils are bad. The depth of soil
required depends on its nature. A stiff soil discourages the growth of
the "tap" root, which in good porous soils is generally seven or eight
feet long.
[Illustration: CHARACTERISTIC ROOT SYSTEM OF THE CACAO TREE.
Note the long tap root.
(Reproduced from the Imperial Institute series of Handbooks to the
Commercial Resources of the Tropics, by permission.)]
_Manure._
The greater part of the world's cacao is produced without the use of
artificial manures. The soil, which is continually washed down by the
rains into the rivers, is continually renewed by decomposition of the
bed rock, and in the tropics this decomposition is more rapid than in
temperate climes. In Guayaquil, "notwithstanding the fact that the same
soil has been cropped consecutively for over a hundred years, there is
as yet no sign of decadence, nor does a necessity yet arise for
artificial manure."[1] However, manures are useful with all soils, and
necessary with many. Happy is the planter who is so placed that he can
obtain a plentiful supply of farmyard or pen manure, as this gives
excellent results. "Mulching" is also recommended. This consists of
covering the ground with decaying leaves, grasses, etc., which keep the
soil in a moist and open condition during the dry season. If artificial
manures are used they should vary according to the soil, and, although
he can obtain considerable help from the analyst, the planter's most
reliable guide will be experiment on the spot.
[1] _Bulletin_, Botanic Dept., Jamaica, February, 1900.
_Planting._
In the past insufficient care has been taken in _the selection of seed_.
The planter should choose the large plump beans with a pale interior, or
he should choose the nearest kind to this that is sufficiently hardy to
thrive in the particular environment. He can plant (1) direct from
seeds, or (2) from seedlings--plants raised in nurseries in bamboo pots,
or (3) by grafting or budding. It is usual to plant two or three seeds
in each hole, and destroy the weaker plants when about a foot high. The
seeds are planted from twelve to fifteen feet apart. The distance chosen
depends chiefly on the richness of the soil; the richer the soil, the
more ample room is allowed for the trees to spread without choking each
other. Interesting results have been obtained by Hart and others by
grafting the fine but tender criollo on to the hardy forastero, but
until yesterday the practice had not been tried on a large scale.
Experiments were begun in 1913 by Mr. W.G. Freeman in Trinidad which
promise interesting results. By 1919 the Department of Agriculture had
seven acres in grafted and budded cacao. In a few years it should be
possible to say whether it pays to form an estate of budded cacao in
preference to using seedlings.
[Illustration: NURSERY, WITH THE YOUNG CACAO PLANTS IN BASKETS, JAVA.
(Reproduced from van Hall's _Cocoa_, by permission of Messrs. Macmillan
& Co.).]
[Illustration: PLANTING CACAO, TRINIDAD, FROM YOUNG SEEDLINGS IN BAMBOO
POTS.]
[Illustration: CACAO IN ITS FOURTH YEAR (SAMOA).]
There are no longer any mystic rites performed before planting. In the
old days it was the custom to solemnize the planting, for example, by
sacrificing a cacao-coloured dog (see Bancroft's _Native Races of the
Pacific States_.)
_Shade: Temporary and Permanent._
[Illustration: COPY OF AN OLD ENGRAVING SHOWING THE CACAO TREE, AND A
TREE SHADING IT.
(From _Bontekoe's Works_.)]
When the seeds are planted, such small plants as cassava, chillies,
pigeon peas and the like are planted with them. The object of planting
these is to afford the young cacao plant shelter from the sun, and to
keep the ground in good condition. Incidentally the planter obtains
cassava (which gives tapioca), red peppers, etc., as a "catch crop"
whilst he is waiting for the cacao tree to begin to yield. Bananas and
plantains are planted with the same object, and these are allowed to
remain for a longer period. Such is the rapidity of plant growth in the
tropics that in three or four years the cacao tree is taller than a man,
and begins to bear fruit in its fourth or fifth year. Now it is agreed
that, as with men, the cacao tree needs protection in its youth, but
whether it needs shade trees when it is fully grown is one of the
controverted questions. When the planter is sitting after his day's work
is done, and no fresh topic comes to his mind, he often re-opens the
discussion on the question of shade. The idea that cacao trees need
shade is a very ancient one, as is shown in a very old drawing (possibly
the oldest drawing of cacao extant) beneath which it is written: "Of the
tree which bears cacao, which is money, and how the Indians obtained
fire with two pieces of wood." In this drawing you will observe how
lovingly the shade tree shelters the cacao. The intention in using shade
is to imitate the natural forest conditions in which the wild cacao
grew. Sometimes when clearing the forest certain large trees are left
standing, but more frequently and with better judgment, chosen kinds are
planted. Many trees have been used: the saman, bread fruit, mango,
mammet, sand box, pois doux, rubber, etc. In the illustration showing
kapok acting as a parasol for cacao in Java, we see that the proportion
of shade trees to cacao is high. Leguminous trees are preferred because
they conserve the nitrogen in the soil. Hence in Trinidad the favourite
shade tree is _Erythrina_ or Bois Immortel (so called, a humourist
suggests, because it is short-lived). It is also rather prettily named,
"Mother of Cacao." Usually the shade trees are planted about 40 feet
apart, but there are cacao plantations which might cause a stranger to
enquire, "Is this an Immortel plantation?" so closely are these
conspicuous trees planted. When looking down a Trinidad valley, richly
planted with cacao, one sees in every direction the silver-grey trunks
of the Immortel. In the early months of the year these trees have no
leaves, they are a mass of flame-coloured flowers, each "shafted like a
scimitar." It well repays the labour of climbing a hill to look down on
this vermilion glory. Some Trinidad planters believe that their trees
would die without shade, yet in Grenada, only a hundred miles North as
the steamer sails, there are whole plantations without a single shade
tree. The Grenadians say: "You cannot have pods without flowers, and you
cannot have good flowering without light and air." Shade trees are not
used on some estates in San Thomé, and in Brazil there are cocoa kings
with 200,000 trees without one shade tree. It should be mentioned,
however, that in these countries the cacao trees are planted more
closely (about eight feet apart) and themselves shade the soil.
Professor Carmody, in reporting[2] recently on the result of a four
years' experiment with (1) shade, (2) no shade, (3) partial shade,
says that so far partial shade has given the best results. No general
solution has yet been found to the question of the advantage of shade,
and, as Shaw states for morality, so in agriculture, "the golden rule is
that there is no golden rule." Not only is there the personal factor,
but nature provides an infinite variety of environments, and the best
results are obtained by the use of methods appropriate to the local
conditions.
[2] _Bulletin_ Dept. of Agriculture, Trinidad, 1916.
[Illustration: CACAO TREES, SHADED BY KAPOK (_Eriodendron Anfractuosum_)
IN JAVA.
(reproduced from van Hall's _Cocoa_, by permission of Messrs. Macmillan
& Co.)]
[Illustration: CACAO TREES, SHADED BY BOIS IMMORTEL, TRINIDAD.]
_Form of Tree-growth Desired: Suckers._
Viscount Mountmorres, in a delightfully clear exposition of cacao
cultivation which he gave to the native farmers and chiefs of the Gold
Coast in 1906, said: "In pruning, it is necessary always to bear in mind
that the best shape for cacao trees is that of an enlarged open
umbrella," with a height under the umbrella not exceeding seven feet.
With this ideal in his mind, the planter should train up the tree in the
way it should go. Viscount Mountmorres also said that everything that
grows upwards, except the main stem, must be cut off.
This opens a question which is of great interest to planters as to
whether it is wise to allow shoots to grow out from the main trunk near
the ground. Some hold that the high yield on their plantation is due to
letting these upright shoots grow. "Mi Amigo Corsicano said: 'Diavolo,
let the cacao-trees grow, let them branch off like any other fruit-tree,
say the tamarind, the 'chupon' or sucker will in time bear more than its
mother.'"[3] There seems to be some evidence that _old_ trees profit
from the "chupons" because they continue to bear when the old trunk is
weary, but this is compensated for by the fact that the "chupons"
(Portuguese for suckers) were grown at the expense of the tree in its
youth. Hence other planters call them "thieves," and "gormandizers,"
saying that they suck the sap from the tree, turning all to wood. They
follow the advice given as early as 1730 by the author of _The Natural
History of Chocolate_, when he says: "Cut or lop off the suckers." In
Trinidad, experiments have been started, and after a five years' test,
Professor Carmody says that the indications are that it is a matter of
indifference whether "chupons" are allowed to grow or not.
[3] "_How José formed his Cocoa Estate._"
[Illustration: CACAO TREE, WITH SUCKERS, TRINIDAD.]
After hunting, agriculture is man's oldest industry, and improvements
come but slowly, for the proving of a theory often requires work on a
huge scale carried out for several decades. The husbandry of the earth
goes on from century to century with little change, and the methods
followed are the winnowings of experience, tempered with indolence. And
even with the bewildering progress of science in other directions, sound
improvements in this field are rare discoveries. There is great scope
for the application of physical and chemical knowledge to the production
of the raw materials of the tropics. In one or two instances notable
advances have been made, thus the direct production of a white sugar (as
now practised at Java) at the tropical factory will have far-reaching
effects, but with many tropical products the methods practised are as
ancient as they are haphazard. Like all methods founded on long
experience, they suit the environment and the temperament of the people
who use them, so that the work of the scientist in introducing
improvements requires intimate knowledge of the conditions if his
suggestions are to be adopted. The various Departments of Agriculture
are doing splendid pioneer work, but the full harvest of their sowing
will not be reaped until the number of tropically-educated
agriculturists has been increased by the founding of three or four
agricultural colleges and research laboratories in equatorial regions.
There is much research to be done. As yet, however, many planters are
ignorant of all that is already established, the facilities for
education in tropical agriculture being few and far between. There are
signs, however, of development in this direction. It is pleasant to note
that a start was made in Ceylon at the end of 1917 by opening an
agricultural school at Peradenija. Trinidad has for a number of years
had an agricultural school, and is eager to have a college devoted to
agriculture. In 1919, Messrs. Cadbury Bros. gave £5000 to form the
nucleus of a special educational fund for the Gold Coast. The scientists
attached to the several government agricultural departments in Java,
Ceylon, Trinidad, the Philippines, Africa, etc., have done splendid
work, but it is desirable that the number of workers should be
increased. When the world wakes up to the importance of tropical
produce, agricultural colleges will be scattered about the tropics, so
that every would-be planter can learn his subject on the spot.
[Illustration: CUTLASSING.]
_Diseases of the Cacao Tree._
Take, for example, the case of the diseases of plants. Everyone who
takes an interest in the garden knows how destructive the insect pests
and vegetable parasites can be. In the tropics their power for
destruction is very great, and they are a constant menace to economic
products like cacao. The importance of understanding their habits, and
of studying methods of keeping them in check, is readily appreciated;
the planter may be ruined by lacking this knowledge.
The cacao tree has been improved and "domesticated" to satisfy human
requirements, a process which has rendered it weaker to resist attacks
from pests and parasites. It is usual to classify man amongst the pests,
as either from ignorance or by careless handling he can do the tree much
harm. Other animal pests are the wanton thieves: monkeys, squirrels and
rats, who destroy more fruit than they consume. The insect pests include
varieties of beetles, thrips, aphides, scale insects and ants, whilst
fungi are the cause of the "Canker" in the stem and branches, the
"Witch-broom" disease in twigs and leaves, and the "Black Rot" of pods.
The subject is too immense to be summarised in a few lines, and I
recommend readers who wish to know more of this or other division of the
science of cacao cultivation, to consult one or more of the four
classics in English on this subject:
_Cocoa_, by Herbert Wright (Ceylon), 1907.
_Cacao_, by J. Hinchley Hart (Trinidad), 1911.
_Cocoa_, by W.H. Johnson (Nigeria), 1912.
_Cocoa_, by C.J.J. van Hall (Java), 1914.
CHAPTER III
HARVESTING AND PREPARATION FOR THE MARKET
The picking, gathering, and breaking of the cacao are the
easiest jobs on the plantation.
"_How José formed his Cocoa Estate._"
_Gathering and Heaping._
[Illustration]
In the last chapter I gave a brief account of the cultivation of cacao.
I did not deal with forking, spraying, cutlassing, weeding, and so
forth, as it would lead us too far into purely technical discussions. I
propose we assume that the planter has managed his estate well, and that
the plantation is before us looking very healthy and full of fruit
waiting to be picked. The question arises: How shall we gather it? Shall
we shake the tree? Cacao pods do not fall off the tree even when
over-ripe. Shall we knock off or pluck the pods? To do so would make a
scar on the trunk of the tree, and these wounds are dangerous in
tropical climates, as they are often attacked by canker. A sharp machete
or cutlass is used to cut off the pods which grow on the lower part of
the trunk. As the tree is not often strong enough to bear a man,
climbing is out of the question, and a knife on a pole is used for
cutting off the pods on the upper branches. Various shaped knives are
used by different planters, a common and efficient kind (see drawing),
resembles a hand of steel, with the thumb as a hook, so that the
pod-stalk can be cut either by a push or a pull. A good deal of
ingenuity has been expended in devising a "foolproof" picker which shall
render easy the cutting of the pod-stalk and yet not cut or damage the
bark of the tree. A good example is the Agostini picker, which was
approved by Hart.
[Illustration:
(1) COMMON TYPE OF CACAO PICKER.
(2) AGOSTINI CACAO PICKER.]
The gathering of the fruits of one's labour is a pleasant task, which
occurs generally only at rare intervals. Cacao is gathered the whole
year round. There is, however, in most districts one principal harvest
period, and a subsidiary harvest.
[Illustration: GATHERING CACAO PODS, TRINIDAD.]
With cacao in the tropics, as with corn in England, the gathering of the
harvest is a delight to lovers of the beautiful. It is a great charm of
the cacao plantation that the trees are so closely planted that nowhere
does the sunlight find between the foliage a space larger than a man's
hand. After the universal glare outside, it seems dark under the cacao,
although the ground is bright with dappled sunshine. You hear a noise of
talking, of rustling leaves, and falling pods. You come upon a band of
coolies or negroes. One near you carries a long bamboo--as long as a
fishing rod--with a knife at the end. With a lithe movement he inserts
it between the boughs, and, by giving it a sharp jerk, neatly cuts the
stalk of a pod, which falls from the tree to the ground. Only the ripe
pods must be picked. To do this, not only must the picker's aim be true,
but he must also have a good eye for colour. Whether the pods be red or
green, as soon as the colour begins to be tinted with yellow it is ripe
for picking. This change occurs first along the furrows in the pod.
Fewer unripe pods would be gathered if only one kind of pod were grown
on one plantation. The confusion of kinds and colours which is often
found makes sound judgment very difficult. That the men generally judge
correctly the ripeness of pods high in the trees is something to wonder
at. The pickers pass on, strewing the earth with ripe pods. They are
followed by the graceful, dark-skinned girls, who gather one by one the
fallen pods from the greenery, until their baskets are full. Sometimes a
basketful is too heavy and the girl cannot comfortably lift it on to her
head, but when one of the men has helped her to place it there, she
carries it lightly enough. She trips through the trees, her bracelets
jingling, and tumbles the pods on to the heap. Once one has seen a great
heap of cacao pods it glows in one's memory: anything more rich, more
daring in the way of colour one's eye is unlikely to light on. The
artist, seeking only an æsthetic effect would be content with this for
the consummation and would wish the pods to remain unbroken.
[Illustration: COLLECTING CACAO PODS INTO A HEAP PRIOR TO BREAKING.]
_Breaking and Extracting._
There are planters who believe that the product is improved by leaving
the gathered pods several days before breaking; and they would follow
the practice, but for the risk of losses by theft. Hence the pods are
generally broken on the same day as they are gathered. The primitive
methods of breaking with a club or by banging on a hard surface are
happily little used. Masson of New York made pod-breaking machines, and
Sir George Watt has recently invented an ingenious machine for squeezing
the beans out of the pod, but at present the extraction is done almost
universally by hand, either by men or women. A knife which would cut the
husk of the pod and was so constructed that it could not injure the
beans within, would be a useful invention. The human extractor has the
advantage that he or she can distinguish the diseased, unripe or
germinated beans and separate them from the good ones. Picture the men
sitting round the heap of pods and, farther out, in a larger circle,
twice as many girls with baskets. The man breaks the pod and the girls
extract the beans. The man takes the pod in his left hand and gives it a
sharp slash with a small cutlass, just cutting through the tough shell
of the pod, but not into the beans inside; and then gives the blade,
which he has embedded in the shell, a twisting jerk, so that the pod
breaks in two with a crisp crack. The girls take the broken pods and
scoop out the snow-like beans with a flat wooden spoon or a piece of
rib-bone, the beans being pulled off the stringy core (or placenta)
which holds them together. The beans are put preferably into baskets or,
failing these, on to broad banana leaves, which are used as trays.
Practice renders these processes cheerful and easy work, often performed
to an accompaniment of laughing and chattering.
[Illustration: MEN BREAKING PODS, GIRLS SCOOPING OUT BEANS, AND MULES
WAITING WITH BASKETS TO CONVEY THE CACAO TO THE FERMENTARY.]
_Fermenting._
I allow myself the pleasure of thinking that I am causing some of my
readers a little surprise when I tell them that cacao is fermented, and
that the fermentation produces alcohol. As I mentioned above, the cacao
bean is covered with a fruity pulp. The bean as it comes from the pod is
moist, whilst the pulp is full of juice. It would be impossible to
convey it to Europe in this condition; it would decompose, and, when it
reached its destination, would be worthless. In order that a product can
be handled commercially it is desirable to have it in such a condition
that it does not change, and thus with cacao it becomes necessary to get
rid of the pulp, and, whilst this may be done by washing or simply by
drying, experience has shown that the finest and driest product is
obtained when the drying is preceded by fermentation. Just as broken
grapes will ferment, so will the fruity pulp of the cacao bean. Present
day fermentaries are simply convenient places for storing the cacao
whilst the process goes on. In the process of fermentation, Dr.
Chittenden says the beans are "stewed in their own juice." This may be
expressed less picturesquely but more accurately by saying the beans are
warmed by the heat of their own fermenting pulp, from which they absorb
liquid.
In Trinidad the cacao which the girls have scooped out into the baskets
is emptied into larger baskets, two of which are "crooked" on a mule's
back, and carried thus to the fermentary. In Surinam it is conveyed by
boat, and in San Thomé by trucks, which run on Decauville railways.
The period of fermentation and the receptacle to hold the cacao vary
from country to country. With cacao of the criollo type only one or two
days fermentation is required, and as a result, in Ecuador and Ceylon,
the cacao is simply put in heaps on a suitable floor. In Trinidad and
the majority of other cacao-producing areas, where the forastero
variety predominates, from five to nine days are required. The cacao is
put into the "sweat" boxes and covered with banana or plantain leaves to
keep in the heat. The boxes may measure four feet each way and be made
of sweet-smelling cedar wood. As is usual with fermentation, the
temperature begins to rise, and if you thrust your hands into the
fermenting beans you find they are as hot and mucilaginous as a
poultice.
[Illustration: "SWEATING" BOXES, TRINIDAD.
The man is holding the wooden spade used for turning the beans.]
_Time._ _Temperature._
When put in 25° C. or 77° F.
After 1 day 30° C. or 89° F.
After 2 days 37° C. or 98° F.
After 3 days 47° C. or 115° F.
(After the third day the heat is maintained, but the temperature rises
very little.)
The temperature is the simplest guide to the amount of fermentation
taking place, and the uniformity of the temperature in all parts of the
mass is desirable, as showing that all parts are fermenting evenly. The
cacao is usually shovelled from one box to another every one or two
days. The chief object of this operation is to mix the cacao and prevent
merely local fermentation. To make mixing easy one ingenious planter
uses a cylindrical vessel which can be turned about on its axis.
[Illustration: FERMENTING BOXES, JAVA.
From the last box the beans are shovelled into the washing basin.
(Reproduced from van Hall's _Cocoa_, by permission of Messrs. Macmillan
& Co.)]
In other places, for example in Java, the boxes are arranged as a series
of steps, so that the cacao is transferred with little labour from the
higher to the lower. In San Thomé the cacao is placed on the plantation
direct into trucks, which are covered with plaintain leaves, and run on
rails through the plantation right into the fermentary. Some day some
enterprising firm will build a fermentary in portable sections easily
erected, and with some simple mechanical mixer to replace the present
laborious method of turning the beans by manual labour.
The general conditions[1] for a good fermentation are:
(1) The mass of beans must be kept warm.
(2) The mass of beans must be moist, but not sodden.
(3) In the later stages there must be sufficient air.
(4) The boxes must be kept clean.
[1] For full details see the pamphlet by the author on _The
Practice of Fermentation in Trinidad_.
_Changes during Fermentation._
No entirely satisfactory theory of the changes in cacao due to
fermentation has yet been established. It is known that the sugary pulp
outside the beans ferments in a similar way to other fruit pulp, save
that for a yeast fermentation the temperature rises unusually high (in
three days to 47 degrees C.), and also that there are parallel and more
important changes in the interior of the bean. The difficulty of
establishing a complete theory of fermentation of cacao has not daunted
the scientists, for they know that the roses of philosophy are gathered
by just those who can grasp the thorniest problems. Success, however, is
so far only partial, as can be seen by consulting the best introduction
on the subject, the admirable collection of essays on _The Fermentation
of Cacao_, edited by H. Hamel Smith. Here the reader will find the
valuable contributions of Fickendey, Loew, Nicholls, Preyer, Schulte im
Hofe, and Sack.
The obvious changes which occur in the breaking down of the fruity
exterior of the bean should be carefully distinguished from the subtle
changes in the bean itself. Let us consider them separately:--
(_a_) _Changes in the Pulp._--Just as grape-pulp ferments and changes to
wine, and just as weak wine if left exposed becomes sour; so the fruity
sugary pulp outside the cacao bean on exposure gives off bubbles of
carbon dioxide, becomes alcoholic, and later becomes acid. The acid
produced is generally the pleasant vinegar acid (acetic acid), but under
some circumstances it may be lactic acid, or the rancid-smelling butyric
acid. Kismet! The planter trusts to nature to provide the right kind of
fermentation. This fermentation is set up and carried on by the minute
organisms (yeasts, bacteria, etc.), which chance to fall on the beans
from the air or come from the sides of the receptacle. One yeast-cell
does not make a fermentation, and as no yeast is added a day is wasted
whilst any yeasts which happen to be present are multiplying to an army
large enough to produce a visible effect on the pulp. _Any_ organism
which happens to be on the pod, in the air, or on the inside of the
fermentary will multiply in the pulp, if the pulp contains suitable
nourishment. Each kind of organism produces its own characteristic
changes. It would thus appear a miracle if the same substances were
always produced. Yet, just as grape-juice left exposed to every
micro-organism of the air, generally changes in the direction of wine
more or less good, so the pulp of cacao tends, broadly speaking, to
ferment in one way. It would, however, be a serious error to assume that
exactly the same kind of fermentation takes place in any two
fermentaries in the world, and the maximum variation must be
considerable. As the pulp ferments, it is destroyed; it gradually
changes from white to brown, and a liquid ("sweatings") flows away from
it. The "_sweatings_" taste like sweet cider. At present this is allowed
to run away through holes in the bottom of the box, and no care is taken
to preserve what may yet become a valuable by-product. I found by
experiment that in the preparation of one cwt. of dry beans about 1-1/2
gallons of this unstable liquid are produced. In other words, some seven
or eight million gallons of "sweatings" run to waste every year. In most
cases only small quantities are produced in one place at one time. This,
and the lack of knowledge of scientifically controlled fermentation,
and the difficulty of bottling, prevent the starting of an industry
producing either a new drink or a vinegar. The cacao juice or
"sweatings" contains about fifteen per cent. of solids, about half of
which consists of sugars. If the fermentation of the cacao were
centralised in the various districts, and conducted on a large scale
under a chemist's control, the sugars could be obtained, or an alcoholic
liquid or a vinegar could easily be prepared.
[Illustration: CHARGING THE CACAO ON TO TRUCKS IN THE PLANTATION, SAN
THOMÉ.]
[Illustration: CACAO IN THE FERMENTING TRUCKS, SAN THOMÉ.
The covering of banana leaves keeps the beans warm.]
The planter decides when the beans are fermented by simply looking at
them; he judges their condition by the colour of the pulp. When they are
ready to be removed from the fermentary they are plump, and brown
without, and juicy within.
(_b_) _Changes in the Interior of the Bean._--What is the relation
between the comparatively simple fermentation of the pulp and the
changes in the interior of the bean? This important question has not yet
been answered, although a number of attempts have been made.
As far as is known, the living ferments (micro-organisms) do not
penetrate the skin of the bean, so that any fermentation which takes
place must be promoted by unorganised ferments (or enzymes). Mr. H.C.
Brill[2] found raffinase, invertase, casease and protease in the pulp;
oxidase, raffinase, casease and emulsinlike enzymes in the fresh bean;
and all these six, together with diastase, in the fermented bean. Dr.
Fickendey says: "The object of fermentation is, in the main, to kill the
germ of the bean in such a manner that the efficiency of the unorganised
ferment is in no way impaired."
[2] _Philippine Journal of Science_, 1917.
From my own observations I believe that forastero beans are killed at 47
degrees C. (which is commonly reached when they have been fermenting 60
hours), for a remarkable change takes place at this temperature and
time. Whilst the micro-organisms remain outside, the juice of the pulp
appears to penetrate not only the skin, but the flesh of the bean, and
the brilliant violet in the isolated pigment cells becomes diffused more
or less evenly throughout the entire bean, including the "germ." It is
certain that the bean absorbs liquid from the outside, for it becomes so
plump that its skin is stretched to the utmost. The following changes
occur:
(1) _Taste._ An astringent colourless substance (a tannin or
a body possessing many properties of a tannin) changes to a
tasteless brown substance. The bean begins to taste less
astringent as the "tannin" is destroyed. With white (criollo)
beans this change is sufficiently advanced in two days, but
with purple (forastero) beans it may take seven days.
(2) _Colour._ The change in the tannin results in the white
(criollo) beans becoming brown and the purple (forastero)
beans becoming tinged with brown. The action resembles the
browning of a freshly-cut apple, and has been shown to be due
to oxygen (activated by an oxidase, a ferment encouraging
combination with oxygen) acting on the astringent
colourless substance, which, like the photographic developer,
pyrogallic acid, becomes brown on oxidation.
(3) _Aroma._ A notable change is that substances are created
within the bean, which _on roasting_ produce the fine
aromatic odour characteristic of cocoa and chocolate, and
which Messrs. Bainbridge and Davies have shown is due to a
trace (0.001 per cent.) of an essential oil over half of
which consists of linalool.[3]
(4) _Stimulating Effect._ It is commonly stated that during
fermentation there is generated theobromine, the alkaloid
which gives cacao its stimulating properties, but the
estimation of theobromine in fermented and unfermented beans
does not support this.
(5) _Consistency._ Fermented beans become crisp on drying.
This development may be due to the "tannins" encountering, in
their dispersion through the bean, proteins, which are thus
converted into bodies which are brittle solids on drying
(compare tanning of hides). The "hide" of the bean may be
similarly "tanned"--the shell certainly becomes leathery
(unless washed)--but a far more probable explanation, in both
cases, is that the gummy bodies in bean and shell set hard on
drying.
[3] _Journal of the Chemical Society_, 1912.
We see, then, that although fermentation was probably originally
followed as the best method of getting rid of the pulp, it has other
effects which are entirely good. It enables the planter to produce a
drier bean, and one which has, when roasted, a finer flavour, colour,
and aroma, than the unfermented. Fermentation is generally considered to
produce so many desirable results that M. Perrot's suggestion[4] of
removing the pulp by treatment with alkali, and thus avoiding
fermentation, has not been enthusiastically received.
[4] _Comptes Rendus_, 1913.
Beans which have been dried direct and those which have been fermented
may be distinguished as follows:
CACAO BEANS
DRIED DIRECT. FERMENTED AND DRIED.
_Shape of bean_ Flat Plumper
_Shell_ Soft and close fitting Crisp and more or
less free.
_Interior: colour_ Slate-blue or mud-brown Bright browns and
purples
" _consistence_ Leather to cheese Crisp
" _appearance_ Solid Open-grained
" _taste_ More or less bitter Less astringent
or astringent
Whilst several effects of fermentation have not been satisfactorily
accounted for, I think all are agreed that to obtain one of the chief
effects of fermentation, namely the brown colour, oxidation is
necessary. All recognise that for this oxidation the presence of three
substances is essential:
(1) The tannin to be oxidised.
(2) Oxygen.
(3) An enzyme which encourages the oxidation.
All these occur in the cacao bean as it comes from the pod, but why
oxidation occurs so much better in a fermented bean than in a bean which
is simply dried is not very clear. If you cut an apple it goes brown
owing to the action of oxygen absorbed from the air, but as long as the
apple is uncut and unbruised it remains white. If you take a cacao bean
from the pod and cut it, the exposed surface goes brown, but if you
ferment the bean the whole of it gradually goes brown without being cut.
My observations lead me to believe that the bean does not become
oxidised until it is killed, that is, until it is no longer capable of
germination. It can be killed by raising the temperature, by
fermentation or otherwise, or as Dr. Fickendey has shown, by cooling to
almost freezing temperatures. It may be that killing the bean makes its
skin and cell walls more permeable to oxygen, but my theory is that when
the bean is killed disintegration or weakening of the cell walls, etc.,
occurs, and, as a result, the enzyme and tannin, _hitherto separate_,
become mixed, and hence able actively to absorb oxygen. The action of
oxygen on the tannin also accounts for the loss of astringency on
fermentation, and it may be well to point out that fermentation
increases the internal surface of the bean exposed to air and oxygen.
The bean, during fermentation, actually sucks in liquid from the
surrounding pulp and becomes plumper and fuller. On drying, however, the
skin, which has been expanded to its utmost, wrinkles up as the interior
contracts and no longer fits tightly to the bean, and the cotyledons
having been thrust apart by the liquid, no longer hold together so
closely. This accounts for the open appearance of a fermented bean. As
on drying large interspaces are produced, these allow the air to
circulate more freely and expose a greater surface of the bean to the
action of oxygen. Since the liquids in all living matter presumably
contain some dissolved oxygen, the problem is to account for the fact
that the tannin in the unfermented bean remains unoxidised, whilst that
in the fermented bean is easily oxidised. The above affords a partial
explanation, and seems fairly satisfactory when taken with my previous
suggestion, namely, that during fermentation the bean is rendered
pervious to water, which, on distributing itself throughout the bean,
dissolves the isolated masses of tannin and diffuses it evenly, so that
it encounters and becomes mixed with the enzymes. From this it will be
evident that the major part of the oxidation of the tannin occurs during
drying, and hence the importance of this, both from the point of view of
the keeping properties of the cacao, and its colour, taste and aroma.
It will be realised from the above that there is still a vast amount of
work to be done before the chemist will be in a position to obtain the
more desirable aromas and flavours. Having found the necessary
conditions, scientifically trained overseers will be required to produce
them, and for this they will need to have under their direction
arrangements for fermentation designed on correct principles and
allowing some degree of control. Whilst improvements are always possible
in the approach to perfection, it must be admitted that, considering the
means at their disposal, the planters produce a remarkably fine product.
[Illustration: FOR DRYING SMALL QUANTITIES.
A simple tray-barrow, which can be run under the house when rain comes
on.]
_Loss on Fermenting and Drying._
The fermented cacao is conveyed from the fermentary to the drying trays
or floors. The planter often has some rough check-weighing system. Thus,
for example, he notes the number of standard baskets of wet cacao put
into the fermentary, and he measures the fermented cacao produced with
the help of a bottomless barrel. By this means he finds that on
fermentation the beans lose weight by the draining away of the
"sweatings," according to the amount and juiciness of the pulp round
them. The beans are still very wet, and on drying lose a high percentage
of their moisture by evaporation before the cacao bean of commerce is
obtained.
The average losses may be tabulated thus:
Weight of wet cacao from pod 100
Loss on fermentation 20 to 25
Loss on drying 40
--------
Cacao beans of commerce obtained 35 to 40
[Illustration: SPREADING THE CACAO BEANS ON MATS TO DRY IN THE SUN,
CEYLON.]
The drying of cacao is an art. On the one hand it is necessary to get
the beans quite dry (that is, in a condition in which they hold only
their normal amount of water--5 to 7 per cent.) or they will be liable
to go mouldy. On the other hand, the husk or shell of the bean must not
be allowed to become burned or brittle. Brittle shells produce waste in
packing and handling, and broken shells allow grubs and mould to enter
the beans when the cacao is stored. The method of drying varies in
different countries according to the climate. José says: "In the wet
season when 'Father Sol' chooses to lie low behind the clouds for days
and your cocoa house is full, your curing house full, your trees
loaded, then is the time to put on his mettle the energetic and
practical planter. In such tight corners, _amigo_, I have known a friend
to set a fire under his cocoa house to keep the cocoa on the top
somewhat warm. Another friend's plan (and he recommended it) was to
address his patron saint on such occasions. He never addressed that
saint at other times."
[Illustration: DRYING TRAYS, GRENADA.
The trays slide on rails. The corrugated iron roofs will slide over the
whole to protect from rain.]
In most producing areas sun-drying is preferred, but in countries where
much rain falls, artificial dryers are slowly but surely coming into
vogue. These vary in pattern from simple heated rooms, with shelves, to
vacuum stoves and revolving drums. The sellers of these machines will
agree with me when I say that every progressive planter ought to have
one of these artificial aids to use during those depressing periods when
the rain continually streams from the sky. On fine days it is difficult
to prevent mildew appearing on the cacao, but at such times it is
impossible. However, whenever available, the sun's heat is preferable,
for it encourages a slow and even drying, which lasts over a period of
about three days. As Dr. Paul Preuss says: "II faut éviter une
dessiccation trop rapide. Le cacao ne peut être séché en moins de trois
jours."[5] Further, most observers agree with Dr. Sack that the valuable
changes, which occur during fermentation, continue during drying,
especially those in which oxygen assists. The full advantage of these is
lost if the temperature used is high enough to kill the enzymes, or if
the drying is too rapid, both of which may occur with artificial drying.
[5] Dr. Paul Preuss, _Le cacao. Culture et Préparation_.
Sun-drying is done on cement or brick floors, on coir mats or trays, or
on wooden platforms. In order to dry the cacao uniformly it is raked
over and over in the sun. It must be tenderly treated, carefully
"watched and caressed," until the interior becomes quite crisp and in
colour a beautiful brown.
Sometimes the platforms are built on the top of the fermentaries, the
cacao being conveyed through a hole in the roof of the fermentary to the
drying platform.
[Illustration: "HAMEL-SMITH" ROTARY DRYER.
(Made by Messrs. David Bridge and Co., Manchester).
The receiving cylinders, six in number, are filled approximately
three-quarters full with the cacao to be dried. These are then placed in
position on the revolving framework, which is enclosed in the casing and
slowly revolved. The cylinders are fitted with baffle plates, which
gently turn over the cacao beans at each revolution so that even drying
throughout is the result. The casing is heated to the requisite
temperature by means of a special stove, the arrangement of which is
such as to allow the air drawn from the outside to circulate around the
stove and to pass into the interior of the casing containing the drying
cylinders. The fumes from the fuel do not in any way come in contact
with the material during drying.]
[Illustration: DRYING PLATFORMS, TRINIDAD, WITH SLIDING ROOFS.]
In Trinidad the platform always has a sliding roof, which can be pulled
over the cacao in the blaze of noon or when a rainstorm comes on. In
other places, sliding platforms are used which can be pushed under cover
in wet weather.
_The Washing of Cacao._
In Java, Ceylon and Madagascar before the cacao is dried, it is first
washed to remove all traces of pulp. This removal of pulp enables the
beans to be more rapidly dried, and is considered almost a necessity in
Ceylon, where sun-drying is difficult. The practice appears at first
sight wholly good and sanitary, but although beans so treated have a
very clean and bright appearance, looking not unlike almonds, the
practice cannot be recommended. There is a loss of from 2 to 10 per
cent. in weight, which is a disadvantage to the planter, whilst from the
manufacturer's point of view, washing is objectionable because,
according to Dr. Paul Preuss, the aroma suffers. Whilst this may be
questioned, there is no doubt that washing renders the shells more
brittle and friable, and less able to bear carriage and handling; and
when the shell is broken, the cacao is more liable to attack by grubs
and mould. Therein lies the chief danger of washing.
[Illustration: CACAO DRYING PLATFORMS, SAN THOMÉ. Three tiers of trays
on rails.
(Reproduced by permission from the Imperial Institute series of
Handbooks to the Commercial Resources of the Tropics).]
[Illustration: WASHING THE BEANS IN A VAT TO CLEAN OFF THE PULP,
CEYLON.]
_Claying, Colouring, and Polishing Cacao._
[Illustration: CLAYING CACAO BEANS IN TRINIDAD.]
Just as in Java and Ceylon, to assist drying, they wash off the pulp, so
in Venezuela and often in Trinidad, with the same object, they put earth
or clay on the beans. In Venezuela it is a heavy, rough coat, and in
Trinidad a film so thin that usually it is not visible. In Venezuela,
where fermentation is often only allowed to proceed for one day, the use
of fine red earth may possibly be of value. It certainly gives the beans
a very pretty appearance; they look as though they have been moistened
and rolled in cocoa powder. But in Trinidad, where the fermentation is a
lengthy one, the use of clay, though hallowed by custom, is quite
unnecessary. In the report of the Commission of Enquiry (Trinidad, 1915)
we read concerning claying that "It is said to prevent the bean from
becoming mouldy in wet weather, to improve its marketable value by
giving it a bright and uniform appearance, and to help to preserve its
aroma." In the appendix to this report the following recommendation
occurs: "The claying of cacao ought to be avoided as much as possible,
and when necessary only sufficient to give a uniform colour ought to be
used." In my opinion manufacturers would do well to discourage entirely
the claying of cacao either in Trinidad or Venezuela, for from their
point of view it has nothing to recommend it. One per cent. of clay is
sufficient to give a uniform colour, but occasionally considerably more
than this is used. If we are to believe reports, deliberate adulteration
is sometimes practised. Thus in _How José formed his Cocoa Estate_ we
read: "A cocoa dealer of our day to give a uniform colour to the
miscellaneous brands he has purchased from Pedro, Dick, or Sammy will
wash the beans in a heap, with a mixture of starch, sour oranges, gum
arabic and red ochre. This mixture is always boiled. I can recommend the
'Chinos' in this dodge, who are all adepts in all sorts of
'adulteration' schemes. They even add some grease to this mixture so as
to give the beans that brilliant gloss which you see sometimes." In
Trinidad the usual way of obtaining a gloss is by the curious operation
known as "dancing," which is performed on the moistened beans after the
clay has been sprinkled on them. It is a quaint sight to see a circle of
seven or eight coloured folk slowly treading a heap of beans. The
dancing may proceed for any period up to an hour, and as they tread they
sing some weird native chant. Somewhat impressed, I remarked to the
planter that it had all the appearance of an incantation. He replied
that the process cost 2d. per cwt. Dancing makes the beans look smooth,
shiny, and even, and it separates any beans that may be stuck together
in clusters. It may make the beans rounder, and it is said to improve
their keeping properties, but this remains to be proved. On the whole,
if it is considered desirable to produce a glossy appearance, it is
better to use a polishing machine.
_The Weight of the Cured Cacao Bean._
[Illustration: SORTING CACAO BEANS IN JAVA.
(Reproduced from van Hall's _Cocoa_, by permission of Messrs. Macmillan
& Co.).]
Planters and others may be interested to know the comparative sizes of
the beans from the various producing areas of the world. Some idea of
these can be gained by considering the relative weights of the beans
as purchased in England.
Average weight Number of Beans
Kind. of one Bean. to the lb.
Grenada 1.0 grammes 450
Parâ 1.0 " 450
Bahia 1.1 " 410
Accra 1.2 " 380
Trinidad 1.2 " 380
Cameroons 1.2 " 380
Ceylon 1.2 " 380
Caracas 1.3 " 350
Machala 1.4 " 330
Arriba 1.5 " 300
Carupano 1.6 " 280
_The Yield of the Cacao Tree._
The average yield of cacao has in the past generally been over-stated.
Whether this is because the planter is an optimist or because he wishes
others to think his efforts are crowned with exceptional success, or
because he takes a simple pride in his district, is hard to tell.
Probably the tendency has been to take the finer estates and put their
results down as the average.
Of the thousands of flowers that bloom on one tree during the year, on
an average only about twenty develop into mature pods, and each pod
yields about 1-1/3 ounces of dry cured cacao. Taking the healthy trees
with the neglected, the average yield is from 1-1/2 to 2 pounds of
commercial cacao per tree. This seems very small, and those who hear it
for the first time often make a rapid mental calculation of the amazing
number of trees that must be needed to produce the world's supply, at
least 250 million trees. Or again, taking the average yield per acre as
400 lbs., we find that there must be well over a million acres under
cacao cultivation. At the Government station at Aburi (Gold Coast) three
plots of cacao gave in 1914 an average yield of over 8 pounds of cacao
per tree, and in 1918 some 468 trees (_Amelonado_) gave as an average
7.8 pounds per tree. This suggests what might be done by thorough
cultivation. It suggests a great opportunity for the planters--that,
without planting one more tree, they might quadruple the world's
production.
The work which has been started by the Agricultural Department in
Trinidad of recording the yield of individual trees has shown that great
differences occur. Further, it has generally been observed that the
heavy bearing trees of the first year have continued to be heavy
bearers, and the poor-yielding trees have remained poor during
subsequent years. The report rightly concludes that: "The question of
detecting the poor-bearing trees on an estate and having them replaced
by trees raised from selected stock, or budded or grafted trees, of
known prolific and other good qualities is deserving of the most serious
consideration by planters."
_The Kind of Cacao that Manufacturers Like._[6]
[6] For further information read _The Qualities in Cacao
Desired by Manufacturers_, by N.P. Booth and A.W.
Knapp, International Congress of Tropical Agriculture,
1914.
Planters have suggested to me that if the users and producers of cacao
could be brought together it would be to their mutual advantage. Permit
me to conceive a meeting and report an imaginary conversation:
PLANTER: You know we planters work a little in the dark. We
don't know quite what to strive after. Tell me exactly what
kind of cacao the manufacturers want?
MANUFACTURER: Every buyer and manufacturer has his tastes and
preferences and----.
PLANTER: Don't hedge!
MANUFACTURER: The cacao of each producing area has its
special characters, even as the wine from a country, and part
of the good manufacturer's art is the art of blending.
PLANTER: What--good with bad?
MANUFACTURER: No! Good of one type with good of another type.
PLANTER: What do you mean exactly by good?
MANUFACTURER: By good I mean large, ripe, well-cured beans.
By indifferent I mean unripe and unfermented. By abominable I
mean germinated, mouldy, and grubby beans. Happily, the last
class is quite a small one.
PLANTER: You don't mean to tell me that only the good cacao
sells?
MANUFACTURER: Unfortunately, no! There are users of inferior
beans. Practically all the cacao produced--good and
indifferent--is bought by someone. Most manufacturers prefer
the fine, healthy, well fermented kinds.
PLANTER: Well fermented! They have a strange way of showing
their preference. Why, they often pay more for Guayaquil than
they do for Grenada cacao. Yet Guayaquil is never properly
fermented, whilst that from the Grenada estates is perfectly
fermented.
MANUFACTURER: Agreed. Just as you would pay more for a
badly-trained thoroughbred than for a well-trained mongrel.
It's breed they pay for. The Guayaquil breed is peculiar;
there is nothing else like it in the world. You might think
the tree had been grafted on to a spice tree. It has a fine
characteristic aroma, which is so powerful that it masks the
presence of a high percentage of unfermented beans. However,
if Guayaquil cacao was well-fermented it would (subject to
the iron laws of Supply and Demand) fetch a still higher
price, and there would not be the loss there is in a wet
season when the Guayaquil cacao, being unfermented, goes
mouldy. I think in Grenada they plant for high yield, and not
for quality, for the bean is small and approaches the
inferior Calabacillo breed. Its value is maintained by an
amazing evenness and an uniform excellence in curing. The way
in which it is prepared for the market does great credit to
the planters.
PLANTER: They don't clay there, do they?
MANUFACTURER: No! and yet it is practically impossible to
find a mouldy bean in Grenada estates cacao. Evidently
claying is not a necessity--in Grenada.
PLANTER: Ha! ha! By that I suppose you insinuate that it is
not a necessity in Trinidad, where the curing is also
excellent. Or in Venezuela? What's the buyer's objection to
claying?
MANUFACTURER: Simply that claying is camouflage. Actually the
buyer doesn't mind so long as the clay is not too generously
used. He objects to paying for beans and getting clay.
However, it's really too bad to colour up with clay the black
cacao from diseased pods; it might deceive even experienced
brokers.
PLANTER: Ha! ha! Then it's a very sinful practice. I don't
think that ever gets beyond the local tropical market. I know
the merchants judge largely by "the skin," but I thought the
London broker----.
MANUFACTURER: You see it's like this. Just as you associate a
certain label with a particularly good brand of cigar so the
planter's mark on the bag and the external appearance of the
beans influence the broker by long association. But just as
you cannot truly judge a cigar by the picture on the box, so
the broker has to consider what is under the shell of the
bean. One or two manufacturers go further, but don't trust
merely to "tasting with their eyes"--they only come to a
conclusion when they have roasted a sample.
PLANTER: But a buyer can get a shrewd idea without roasting,
surely? You agree. Well, what exactly does he look for?
MANUFACTURER: Depends what nationality the bean is--I mean
whether it was grown in Venezuela, Brazil, Trinidad, or the
Gold Coast. In general he likes beans with a good "break,"
that is beans which, under the firm pressure of thumb and
forefinger, break into small crisp nibs. Closeness or
cheesiness are danger signals, warnings of lack of
fermentation,--so is a slate-coloured interior. He prefers a
pale, even-coloured interior,--cinnamon, chocolate, or
café-au-lait colour and----.
PLANTER: One moment! I've heard before of planters being told
to ferment and cure until the bean is cinnamon colour. Why,
man, you couldn't get a pale brown interior with beans of the
Forastero or Calabacillo type if you fermented them to
rottenness.
MANUFACTURER: True! Well, if the breed on your plantation is
purple Forastero, and more than half of the cacao in the
world is, you must develop as much brown in the beans as
possible. They should have the characteristic refreshing
odour of raw cacao, together with a faint vinegary odour. The
buyers much dislike any foreign smell, any mouldy, hammy, or
cheesy odour.
PLANTER: And where do the foreign odours come from?
MANUFACTURER: That's debatable. Some come from bad
fermentations, due to dirty fermentaries, abnormal
temperatures, or unripe cacao.[7] Some come from smoky or
imperfect artificial drying. Some come from mould.
Unfermented cacao is liable to go mouldy, so is germinated or
over-ripe cacao with broken shells. Some cacao unfortunately
gets wet with sea water. There always seems to me something
pathetic in the thought of finely-cured cacao being drowned
in sea water as it goes out in open boats to the steamer.
PLANTER: You see, we haven't piers and jetties everywhere,
and often it's a long journey to them. Well, you've told me
the buyers note break, colour and aroma. Anything else?
MANUFACTURER: They like large beans, partly because largeness
suggests fineness, and partly because with large beans the
percentage of shell is less. Small flat beans are very
wasteful and unsatisfactory; they are nearly all shell and
very difficult to separate from the shell.
PLANTER: When there's a drought we can't help ourselves; we
produce quantities of small flat beans.
MANUFACTURER: It must be trying to be at the mercy of the
weather. However, the weather doesn't prevent the dirt being
picked out of the beans. Buyers don't like more than half a
per cent. of rubbish; I mean stones, dried twig-like pieces
of pulp, dust, etc., left in the cacao, neither do they like
to see "cobs," that is, two or more beans stuck together,
nor----.
PLANTER: How about gloss?
MANUFACTURER: The beauty of a polished bean attracts,
although they know the beauty is less than skin deep.
PLANTER: And washing?
MANUFACTURER: In my opinion washing is bad, leaves the shell
too fragile. I believe in Hamburg they used to pay more for
washed beans; although very little, I suppose less than five
per cent., of the world's cacao is washed, but in London many
buyers prefer "the great unwashed." However, brokers are
conservative, and would probably look on unwashed Ceylon with
suspicion.
PLANTER: Well, I have been very interested in everything that
you have said, and I think every planter should strive to
produce the very best he can, but he does not get much
encouragement.
MANUFACTURER: How is that?
PLANTER: There is insufficient difference between the price
of the best and the common.
MANUFACTURER: Unfortunately that is beyond any individual
manufacturer's control. The price is controlled by the
European and New York markets. I am afraid that as long as
there is so large a demand by the public for cheap cocoas so
long will there be keen competition amongst buyers for the
commoner kinds of beans.
PLANTER: The manufacturer should keep some of his own men on
the spot to do his buying. They would discriminate carefully,
and the differences in price offered would soon educate the
planters!
MANUFACTURER: True, but as each manufacturer requires cacao
from many countries and districts, this would be a very
costly enterprise. Several manufacturers have had their own
buyers in certain places in the Tropics for some years, and
it is generally agreed that this has acted as an incentive to
the growers to improve the quality.[8] But in the main we
have to look to the various Government Agricultural
Departments to instruct and encourage the planters in the use
of the best methods.
[7] Cameroon cacao sometimes has an objectionable odour and
flavour, which may be due to its being fermented in an
unripe condition, for, as Dr. Fickendey says: "Cameroon
cacao has to be harvested unripe to save the pods from
brown rot."
[8] The Director of Agriculture, in a paper on _The Gold
Coast Cocoa Industry_, says: "We are indebted to Messrs.
Cadbury Bros., of Bournville, for a lead in this
direction. They have several agents in the colony who
purchase on their behalf only the best qualities at an
enhanced price, and reject all that falls below the
standard of their requirements."
[Illustration: THE WORLD'S CACAO PRODUCTION.
(Mean of 5 years, 1914-1918. Average world production 295,600 tons per
annum.) Diagram showing relative amounts produced by various countries.
The shaded parts show production of British Possessions.]
CHAPTER IV
CACAO PRODUCTION AND SALE
When the English Commander, Thomas Candish, coming into the
Haven Guatulco, burnt two hundred thousand tun of cacao, it
proved no small loss to all New Spain, the provinces
Guatimala and Nicaragua not producing so much in a whole
year.
John Ogilvy's _America_, 1671.
When one starts to discuss, however briefly, the producing areas, one
ought first to take off one's hat to Ecuador, for so long the principal
producer, and then to Venezuela the land of the original cacao, and
producer of the finest criollo type. Having done this, one ought to say
words of praise to Trinidad, Grenada and Ceylon for their scientific
methods of culture and preparation; and, last but not least, the newest
and greatest producer, the Gold Coast, should receive honourable
mention. It is interesting to note that in 1918 British Possessions
produced nearly half (44 per cent.) of the world's supply.
Whilst the war has not very materially hindered the increase of cacao
production in the tropics, the shortage of shipping has prevented the
amount exported from maintaining a steady rise. The table below, taken
mainly from the "Gordian," illustrates this:
WORLD PRODUCTION OF CACAO.
Total in tons (1 ton = 1000 kilogrammes)
1908 194,000 1914 277,000
1909 206,000 1915 298,000
1910 220,000 1916 297,000
1911 241,000 1917 343,000
1912 234,000 1918 273,000
1913 258,000 1919 431,000
The following table is compiled chiefly from Messrs. Theo. Vasmer &
Co.'s reports in the _Confectioners' Union_.
CACAO PRODUCTION OF THE CHIEF PRODUCING AREAS OF THE WORLD.
(1 ton = 1000 kilogrammes).
Country. 1914 1915 1916 1917 1918
Tons. Tons. Tons. Tons. Tons.
Gold Coast[1] 53,000 77,300 72,200 91,000 66,300
Brazil 40,800 45,000 43,700 55,600 41,900
Ecuador 47,200 37,000 42,700 47,200 38,000
San Thomé 31,400 29,900 33,200 31,900 26,600
Trinidad[1] 28,400 24,100 24,000 31,800 26,200
San Domingo 20,700 20,200 21,000 23,700 18,800
Venezuela 16,900 18,300 15,200 13,100 13,000
Lagos[1] 4,900 9,100 9,000 15,400 10,200
Grenada[1] 6,100 6,500 5,500 5,500 6,700
Fernando Po 3,100 3,900 3,800 3,700 4,200
Ceylon[1] 2,900 3,900 3,500 3,700 4,000
Jamaica[1] 3,800 3,600 3,400 2,800 3,000
Surinam 1,900 1,700 2,000 1,900 2,500
Cameroons 1,200 2,400 3,000 2,800 1,300
Haiti 2,100 1,800 1,900 1,500 2,300
French Cols. 1,800 1,900 1,600 2,200 1,700
Cuba 1,800 1,700 1,500 1,500 1,000
Java 1,600 1,500 1,500 1,600 800
Samoa 1,100 900 900 1,200 800
Togo 200 300 400 1,600 1,000
St. Lucia[1] 700 800 700 600 500
Belgian Congo 500 600 800 800 900
Dominica[1] 450 550 300 300 300
St. Vincent[1] 100 100 75 50 75
Other countries 3,200 3,000 3,500 3,500 3,500
-------------------------------------------
Total 275,900 296,100 295,400 344,000 275,600
-------------------------------------------
Total British
Empire 102,000 128,000 120,000 153,000 119,000
[1] British Possessions.
[Illustration: MAP OF THE WORLD, WITH ONLY CACAO-PRODUCING AREAS
MARKED.]
_SOUTH AMERICAN CACAO._
In the map of South America given on p. 89 the principal cacao producing
areas are marked. Their production in 1918 was as follows:
CACAO BEANS EXPORTED.
Percentage of
Country. Metric Tons.[2] World's production.
Brazil 41,865 15.4
Ecuador 38,000 14.0
(Guayaquil alone 34,973 tons)
Venezuela 13,000 5.0
Surinam 2,468 0.9
British Guiana 20 0.01
------------------------------------------
South American Total 95,353 tons 35.31 per cent.
------------------------------------------
[2] These figures, and others quoted later in this chapter,
are estimates given by Messrs. Theo. Vasmer & Co. in
their reports.
ECUADOR.
_Arriba and Machala Cacaos._--In Ecuador, for many years the chief
producing area of the world, dwell the cacao kings, men who possess very
large and wild cacao forests, each containing several million cacao
trees. The method of culture is primitive, and no artificial manures are
used, yet for several generations the trees have given good crops and
the soil remains as fertile as ever. The two principal cacaos are known
as _Arriba_ and _Machala_, or classed together as Guayaquil after the
city of that name. Guayaquil, the commercial metropolis of the Republic
of Ecuador, is an ancient and picturesque city built almost astride the
Equator. Despite the unscientific cultural methods, and the imperfect
fermentation, which results in the cacao containing a high percentage of
unfermented beans and not infrequently mouldy beans also, this cacao is
much appreciated in Europe and America, for the beans are large and
possess a fine strong flavour and characteristic scented aroma. The
amount of Guayaquil cacao exported in 1919 was 33,209 tons.
[Illustration: RAKING CACAO BEANS ON THE DRIERS.]
[Illustration: GATHERING CACAO PODS IN ECUADOR.
(La Clementina Plantation, Ecuador.)]
[Illustration: SORTING CACAO FOR SHIPMENT, GUAYAQUIL, ECUADOR.]
An interesting experiment was made in 1912, when a protective
association known as the _Asociacion de Agricultores del Ecuador_ was
legalised. This collects half a golden dollar on every hundred pounds of
cacao, and by purchasing and storing cacao on its own account whenever
prices fall below a reasonable minimum, attempts in the planter's
interest to regulate the selling price of cacao. Unfortunately, as cacao
tends to go mouldy when stored in a damp tropical climate, the
_Asociacion_ is not an unmixed blessing to the manufacturer and
consumer.
BRAZIL.
_Parâ and Bahia Cacaos._--Brazil has made marked progress in recent
years, and has now overtaken Ecuador in quantity of produce; the cacao,
however, is quite different from, and not as fine as, that from
Guayaquil. The principal cacao comes from the State of Bahia, where the
climate is ideal for its cultivation. Indeed so perfect are the natural
conditions that formerly no care was taken in cacao production, and much
of that gathered was wild and uncured. During the last decade there has
been an improvement, and this would, doubtless, be more noteworthy if
the means of transport were better, for at present the roads are bad and
the railways inadequate; hence most of the cacao is brought down to the
city of Bahia in canoes. Nevertheless, Bahia cacao is better fermented
than the peculiar cacao of Pará, another important cacao from Brazil,
which is appreciated by manufacturers on account of its mild flavour.
Bahia exported in 1919 about 51,000 tons of cacao.
VENEZUELA.
_Caracas, Carupano and Maracaibo Cacaos._--Venezuela has been called
"the classic home of cacao," and had not the chief occupation of its
inhabitants been revolution, it would have retained till now the
important position it held a hundred years ago. It is in this enchanted
country (it was at La Guayra in Caracas, as readers of _Westward Ho!_
will remember, that Amyas found his long-sought Rose) that the finest
cacao in the world is produced: the criollo, the bean with the
golden-brown break. The tree which produces this is as delicate as the
cacao is fine, and there is some danger that this superb cacao may die
out--a tragedy which every connoisseur would wish to avert.
The _Gordian_ estimates that Venezuela sent out from her three principal
ports in 1919 some 16,226 tons of cacao.
_THE WEST INDIES._
In the map of South America the principal West Indian islands producing
cacao are marked. Their production in 1918 was as follows:
CACAO BEANS EXPORTED. Percentage of
Metric Tons. World's production.
Trinidad (British) 26,177 9.7
San Domingo 18,839 7.0
Grenada (British) 6,704 2.5
Jamaica (British) 3,000 1.1
Haiti 2,272 0.8
St. Lucia (British) 500 0.2
Dominica (British) 300 0.1
St. Vincent (British) 70 0.02
----------- ---------------
West Indies Total 57,862 tons 21.42 per cent.
----------- ---------------
Br. West Indies 36,751 tons 13.6 per cent.
TRINIDAD AND GRENADA.[3]
[3] Cacao production in 1919: Trinidad 27,185 tons; Grenada
4,020 tons.
Cacao was grown in the West Indies in the seventeenth century, and the
inhabitants, after the destructive "blast," which utterly destroyed the
plantations in 1727, bravely replanted cacao, which has flourished there
ever since. The cacaos of Trinidad and Grenada have long been known for
their excellence, and it is mainly from Trinidad that the knowledge of
methods of scientific cultivation and preparation has been spread to
planters all round the equator. The cacao from Trinidad (famous alike
for its cacao and its pitch lake) has always held a high place in the
markets of the world, although a year or two ago the inclusion of
inferior cacao and the practice of claying was abused by a few growers
and merchants. With the object of stopping these abuses and of producing
a uniform cacao, there was formed a Cacao Planters' Association, whose
business it is to grade and bulk, and sell on a co-operative basis, the
cacao produced by its members. This experiment has proved successful,
and in 1918 the Association handled the cacao from over 100 estates.
We may expect to see more of these cacao planters' associations formed
in various parts of the world, for they are in line with the trend of
the times towards large, and ever larger, unions and combinations.
Trinidad is also progressive in its system of agricultural education and
in its formation of agricultural credit societies. The neighbouring
island of Grenada is mountainous, smaller than the Isle of Wight and (if
the Irish will forgive me) greener than Erin's Isle. The methods of
cacao cultivation in vogue there might seem natural to the British
farmer, but they are considered remarkable by cacao planters, for in
Grenada the soil on which the trees grow is forked or tilled. Possibly
from this follows the equally remarkable corollary that the cacao trees
flourish without a single shade tree. The preparation of the bean
receives as much care as the cultivation of the tree, and the cacao
which comes from the estates has an unvaried constancy of quality, not
infrequently giving 100 per cent. of perfectly prepared beans. It is
largely due to this that the cacao from this small island occupies such
an important position on the London market.
[Illustration: MAP OF SOUTH AMERICA AND THE WEST INDIES.
Only cacao-producing areas are marked.]
[Illustration: WORKERS ON A CACAO PLANTATION.
(Messrs. Cadbury's estate in Trinidad.)]
The cacao from San Domingo is known commercially as _Samana_ or
_Sanchez_. A fair proportion is of inferior quality, and is little
appreciated on the European markets. The bulk of it goes to America. The
production in 1919 was about 23,000 tons.
_AFRICAN CACAO._
In the map of Africa the principal producing areas are marked. Their
production in 1918 was as follows:
CACAO BEANS EXPORTED.
Metric Tons. Percentage of
World's production.
Gold Coast (British) 66,343 24.5
San Thomé 19,185 7.1
Lagos (British) 10,223 3.8
Fernando Po 4,220 1.6
Cameroons 1,250 0.4
Togo 1,000 0.4
Belgian Congo 875 0.3
------------ --------------
African Total 103,096 tons 38.1 per cent.
------------ --------------
British Africa 76,566 tons 28.3 per cent.
THE GOLD COAST (_Industria floremus_).
_Accra Cacao._
The name recalls stories of a romantic and awful past, in which gold and
the slave trade played their terrible part. Happily these are things of
the past; so is the "deadly climate." We are told that it is now no
worse than that of other tropical countries. According to Sir Hugh
Clifford, until recently Governor of the Gold Coast, the "West African
Climatic Bogie" is a myth, and the "monumental reputation for
unhealthiness" undeserved. When De Candolle wrote concerning cacao, "I
imagine it would succeed on the Guinea Coast,"[4] as the West African
coast is sometimes called, he achieved prophecy, but he little dreamed
how wonderful this success would be. The rise and growth of the
cacao-growing industry in the Gold Coast is one of the most
extraordinary developments of the last few decades. In thirty years it
has increased its export of cacao from nothing to 40 per cent. of the
total of the world's production.
[4] De Candolle, _Origin of Cultivated Plants_, quoted by R.
Whymper.
[Illustration: MAP OF AFRICA--WITH ONLY CACAO-PRODUCING AREAS MARKED.]
[Illustration: FORESHORE AT ACCRA, WITH STACKS OF CACAO READY FOR
SHIPMENT.
Reproduced by permission of the Editor of "West Africa".]
PRODUCTION OF CACAO ON THE GOLD COAST.
Year. Quantity. Value. £
1891 0 tons (80 lbs.) 4
1896 34 tons 2,276
1901 980 tons 42,837
1906 8,975 tons 336,269
1911 30,798 tons 1,613,468
1916 72,161 tons 3,847,720
1917 90,964 tons 3,146,851
1918 66,343 tons 1,796,985
1919 177,000 tons 8,000,000
The conditions of production in the Gold Coast present a number of
features entirely novel. We hear from time to time of concessions being
granted in tropical regions to this or that company of enterprising
European capitalists, who employ a few Europeans and send them to the
area to manage the industry. The inhabitants of the area become the
manual wage earners of the company, and too often in the lust for
profits, or as an offering to the god of commercial efficiency, the once
easy and free life of the native is lost for ever and a form of
wage-slavery takes its place with doubtful effects on the life and
health of the workers. In defence it is pointed out that yet another
portion of the earth has been made productive, which, without the
initiative of the European capitalist, must have lain fallow. But in
the Gold Coast the "indolent" native has created a new industry entirely
native owned, and in thirty years the Gold Coast has outstripped all the
areas of the world in quantity of produce. Forty years ago the natives
had never seen a cacao tree, now at least fifty million trees flourish
in the colony. This could not have happened without the strenuous
efforts of the Department of Agriculture. The Gold Coast now stands head
and shoulders above any other producing area for quantity. The problem
of the future lies in the improvement of quality, and difficult though
this problem be, we cannot doubt, given a fair chance, that the
far-sighted and energetic Agricultural Department will solve it. Indeed,
it must in justice be pointed out that already a very marked improvement
has been made, and now fifty to one hundred times as much good fermented
cacao is produced as there was ten years ago.[5] However, if a high
standard is to be maintained, the work of the Department of Agriculture
must be supplemented by the willingness of the cacao buyers to pay a
higher price for the better qualities.
[5] "Towards this latter result Messrs. Cadbury Bros., Ltd.,
rendered great assistance. This firm sent representatives
into the country, who proved to the natives that they
were willing to pay an enhanced price for cocoa prepared
in a manner suitable for their requirements. A fair
amount of cocoa was purchased by them, and demonstrations
were made in some places with regard to the proper mode
of fermentation."
(The Agricultural and Forest Products of British West
Africa. _Imperial Institute Handbook_, by G.C. Dudgeon).
[Illustration: CARRIERS CONVEYING BAGS OF CACAO TO SURF BOATS, ACCRA.
Reproduced by permission of the Editor of "West Africa."]
The phenomenal growth of this industry is the more remarkable when we
consider the lack of roads and beasts of burden. The usual pack animals,
horses and oxen, cannot live on the Gold Coast because of the tsetse
fly, which spreads amongst them the sleeping sickness. And so the
native, used as he is to heavy head-loads, naturally adopted this as his
first method of transport, and hundreds of the less affluent natives
arrive at the collecting centres with great weights of cacao on their
heads. "Women and children, light-hearted, chattering and cheerful, bear
their 60 lbs. head-loads with infinite patience. Heavier loads,
approaching sometimes two hundredweight, are borne by grave, silent
Hausa-men, often a distance of thirty or forty miles."
[Illustration: CROSSING THE RIVER AT NSAWAM, GOLD COAST.]
[Illustration: DRYING CACAO BEANS AT MRAMRA.
Reproduced by permission from the Imperial Institute series of Handbooks
to the Commercial Resources of the Tropics.]
One day, not so many years ago, some more ingenious native in the hills
at the back of the Coast, filled an old palm-oil barrel with cacao and
rolled it down the ways to Accra. And now to-day it is a familiar sight
to see a man trundling a huge barrel of cacao, weighing half a ton, down
to the coast. The sound of a motor horn is heard, and he wildly turns
the barrel aside to avoid a disastrous collision with the new, weird
transport animal from Europe. Motor lorries have been used with great
effect on the coast for some seven years; they have the advantage over
pack animals that they do not succumb to the bite of the dreaded tsetse
fly, but nevertheless not a few derelicts lie, or stand on their heads,
in the ditches, the victims of over-work or accident.
[Illustration: SHOOTING CACAO FROM THE ROAD TO THE BEACH, ACCRA.]
Having brought the cacao to the coast, there yet remains the
lighterage to the ocean liner, which lies anchored some two miles from
the shore, rising and falling to the great rollers from the broad
Atlantic. A long boat is used, manned by some twenty swarthy natives,
who glory--vocally--in their passage through the dangerous surf which
roars along the sloping beach. The cacao is piled high on wood racks and
covered with tarpaulins and seldom shares the fate of passengers and
crew, who are often drenched in the surf before they swing by a crane in
the primitive mammy chair, high but not dry, on board the hospitable
Elder Dempster liner.
[Illustration: ROLLING CACAO, GOLD COAST.]
SAN THOMÉ (AND PRINCIPE).
We now turn from the Gold Coast and the success of native ownership to
another part of West Africa, a scene of singular beauty, where the
Portuguese planters have triumphed over savage nature.
Two lovely islands, San Thomé and its little sister isle of Principe,
lie right on the Equator in the Gulf of Guinea, about two hundred miles
from the African mainland. A warm, lazy sea, the sea of the doldrums,
sapphire or turquoise, or, in deep shaded pools, a radiant green,
joyfully foams itself away against these fairy lands of tossing palm,
dense vegetation, rushing cascades, and purple, precipitous peaks. A
soil of volcanic origin is covered with a rich humus of decaying
vegetation, and this, with a soft humid atmosphere, makes an ideal home
for cacao.
The bean, introduced in 1822, was not cultivated with diligence till
fifty years ago. To-day the two islands, which together have not half
the area of Surrey, grow 32,000 metric tons of cacao a year, or about
one-tenth of the world's production.[6] The income of a single planter,
once a poor peasant, has amounted to hundreds of thousands sterling.
[6] The _Gordian's_ estimate for the amount exported in 1919
is 40,766 tons.
[Illustration: ROLLING CACAO, GOLD COAST.
Reproduced by permission of the Editor of "West Africa."]
Dotted over the islands, here nestling on a mountain side, there
overlooking some blue inlet of the sea, are more than two hundred
plantations, or _rocas_, whose buildings look like islands in a green
sea of cacao shrubs, above which rise the grey stems of such forest
trees as have been left to afford shade.
[Illustration: CARRYING CACAO TO THE RAILWAY STATION, NSAWAM, GOLD
COAST.]
Here, not only have the cultivation, fermentation and drying of cacao
been brought to the highest state of perfection, but the details of
organisation--planters' homes, hospitals, cottages, drying sheds and the
Decauville railways--are often models of their kind.
Intelligent and courteous, the planters make delightful hosts. At their
homes, five thousand miles away from Europe, the visitor, who knows what
it means to struggle with steaming, virgin forests, rank encroaching
vegetation, deadly fevers, and the physical and mental inertia
engendered by the tropics, will marvel at the courage and energy that
have triumphed over such obstacles. Calculating from various estimates,
each labourer in the islands appears to produce about 1,640 pounds of
cacao yearly, and the average yield per cultivated acre is 480 pounds,
or about 30 pounds more than that of Trinidad in 1898.
[Illustration: WAGON LOADS OF CACAO BEING TAKEN FROM MESSRS. CADBURY'S
DEPOT TO THE BEACH, ACCRA.]
As there is no available labour in San Thomé, the planters get their
workers from the mainland of Africa. Prior to the year 1908, the labour
system of the islands was responsible for grave abuses. This has now
been changed. Natives from the Portuguese colonies of Angola and
Mozambique now enter freely into contracts ranging from one to five
years, two years being the time generally chosen. At the end of their
term of work they either re-contract or return to their native land with
their savings, with which they generally buy a wife. The readiness with
which the natives volunteer for the work on the islands is proof both of
the soundness of the system of contract and of the good treatment they
receive at the hands of the planters.
[Illustration: THE BUILDINGS OF THE BOA ENTRADA CACAO ESTATE, SAN
THOMÉ.]
Unfortunately, the mortality of the plantation labourers has generally
been very heavy, one large and well-managed estate recording on an
average of seven years an annual death rate of 148 per thousand, and
many _rocas_ have still more appalling records. Against this, other
plantations only a few miles away may show a mortality approximating to
that of an average European city. In February, 1918, the workers in San
Thomé numbered 39,605, and the deaths during the previous year, 1917,
were 1,808, thus showing on official figures an annual mortality of 45
per thousand. Comparing this with the 26 per thousand of Trinidad, and
remembering that most of the San Thomé labourers are in the prime of
life, it will be seen that this death rate represents a heavy loss of
life and justifies the continued demand from the British cocoa
manufacturers for the appointment and report of a special medical
commission.
The Portuguese Government is prepared to meet this demand, for it has
recently sent a Commissioner, Dr. Joaquim Gouveia, to San Thomé to make
a thorough examination of labour conditions, including work, food,
housing, hospitals and medical attendance, and to report fully and
confidentially to the Portuguese Colonial Secretary.
[Illustration: DRYING CACAO AT AGUA IZE, SAN THOMÉ.
The trays are on wheels, which run on rails.]
If this important step is followed by adequate measures of reform there
is every reason to hope that the result will be a material reduction in
the death rate, as the good health enjoyed on some of the _rocas_ shows
San Thomé to be not more unhealthy than other tropical islands.
CAMEROONS.
The Cameroons, which we took from the Germans in 1916, is also on the
West Coast of Africa. It lags far behind the Gold Coast in output,
although both commenced to grow cacao about the same time. The Germans
spent great sums in the Cameroons in giving the industry a scientific
basis, they adopted the "estate plan," and possibly the fact that they
employ contract labour explains why they have not had the same
phenomenal success that the natives working for themselves have achieved
on the Gold Coast.
[Illustration: BARREL ROLLING, GOLD COAST.]
Various countries and districts which are responsible for about 97 per
cent. of the world's cacao crop have now been named and briefly
commented upon. Of other producing areas, the islands, Ceylon and Java,
are worthy of mention. In both of these (as also in Venezuela, Samoa[7]
and Madagascar) is grown the criollo cacao, which produces the plump,
sweet beans with the cinnamon "break." Cacao beans from Ceylon or Java
are easily recognised by their appearance, because, being washed, they
have beautiful clean shells, but there is a serious objection to washed
shells, namely, that they are brittle and as thin as paper, so that many
are broken before they reach the manufacturer. Ceylon is justly famous
for its fine "old red"; along with this a fair quantity of inferior
cacao is produced, which by being called Ceylon (such is the power of a
good name), tends to claim a higher price than its quality warrants.
[7] Robert Louis Stevenson was one of the pioneers in cacao
planting in Samoa, as readers of his _Vailima Letters_
will remember.
[Illustration: BAGGING CACAO, GOLD COAST.
Reproduced by permission of the Editor of "West Africa."]
CACAO MARKETS.
_From the Plantation to the European Market._
It is mentioned above that on the Gold Coast cacao is brought down to
Accra as head-loads, or in barrels, or in motor-lorries. These methods
are exceptional; in other countries it is usually put in sacks at the
estate. Every estate has its own characteristic mark, which is stamped
on the bags, and this is recognised by the buyers in Europe, and gives a
clue to the quality of the contents. There is not as yet a uniform
weight for a bag of cacao, although they all vary between one and two
cwt., thus the bags from Africa contain 1-1/4 cwts., whilst those from
Guayaquil contain 1-3/4 cwts. In these bags the cacao is taken to the
port on the backs of mules, in horse or ox carts, in canoes down a
stream, or more rarely, by rail. It is then conveyed by lighters or surf
boats to the great ocean liners which lie anchored off the shore. In the
hold of the liner it is rocked thousands of miles over the azure seas of
the tropics to the grey-green seas of the temperate zone. In pre-war
days a million bags used to go to Hamburg, three-quarters of a million
to New York, half a million to Havre, and only a trifling quarter of a
million to London. Now London is the leading cacao market of the world.
During the war the supplies were cut off from Hamburg, whilst Liverpool,
becoming a chief port for African cacao, in 1916 imported a million
bags. Then New York began to gorge cacao, and in 1917 created a record,
importing some two and a half million bags, or about 150,000 tons.
Whilst everything is in so fluid a condition it is unwise to prophesy;
it may, however, be said that there are many who think, now that the
consumption of cocoa and chocolate in America has reached such a
prodigious figure, that New York may yet oust London and become the
central dominating market of the world.
[Illustration: SURF BOATS BY THE SIDE OF THE OCEAN LINER, ACCRA.]
_Difficulties of Buying._
Every country produces a different kind of cacao, and the cacao from any
two plantations in the same country often shows wide variation. It may
be said that there are as many kinds of cacao as there are of apples,
cacao showing as marked differences as exhibited by crabs and Blenheims,
not to mention James Grieves, Russets, Worcester Pearmains, Newton
Wonders, Lord Derbys, Belle de Boskoops, and so forth. Further, whilst
the bulk of the cacao is good and sound, a little of the cacao grown in
any district is liable to have suffered from drought or from attacks by
moulds or insect pests. It will be realised from these fragmentary
remarks that the buyer must exercise perpetual vigilance.
[Illustration: BAGGING CACAO BEANS FOR SHIPMENT, TRINIDAD.]
[Illustration: TRANSFERRING BAGS OF CACAO BEANS TO LIGHTERS, TRINIDAD.]
_Cacao Sales._
Before the Cocoa Prices Orders were published (March, 1918) the manner
of conducting the sale of cacao in London was as follows. Brokers' lists
giving the kinds of cacao for sale, and the number of bags of each, were
sent, together with samples, to the buyers some days beforehand, so that
they were able to decide what they wished to purchase and the price they
were willing to pay. The sales always took place at 11 o'clock on
Tuesdays in the Commercial Sale Room in Mincing Lane, that narrow street
off Fenchurch Street, where the air is so highly charged with expert
knowledge of the world's produce, that it would illuminate the prosaic
surroundings with brilliant flashes if it could become visible. On the
morning of the sale samples of the cacaos are on exhibit at the
principal brokers. The man in the street brought into the broker's
office would ask what these strange beans might be. "A new kind of
almond?" he might ask. And then, on being told they were cacao, he would
see nothing to choose between all the various lots and wonder why so
much fuss was made over discriminating amongst the similar and
distinguishing the identical. He might even marvel a little at the
expert knowledge of the buyers; yet, frankly, the pertinent facts
concerning quality, known by the buyer, are fewer and no more difficult
to learn than the thousand and one facts a lad must have at his finger
ends to pass the London Matriculation; they are valued because they are
inaccessible to the multitude; only a few people have the opportunity of
learning them, and their use may make or mar fortunes. The judgment of
quality is, however, only one side of the art of buying. We have to add
to these a knowledge of the conditions prevailing in the various markets
of the world, a knowledge of stocks and probable supplies, and given
this knowledge, an ability to estimate their effect, together with other
conditions, agricultural, political and social, on the price of the
commodity. The room in which the sales are conducted is not a large one,
and usually not more than a hundred people, buyers, pressmen, etc., are
present. Not a single cacao bean is visible, and it might be an auction
sale of property for all the uninitiated could tell. The cacao is put up
in lots. Usually the sales proceed quietly, and it is difficult to
realize that many thousands of bags of cacao are changing hands. The
buyers have perfect trust in the broker's descriptions; they know the
invariable fair-play of the British broker, which is a by-word the world
over. The machinery of the proceedings is lubricated by an easy flow of
humour. Sometimes a few bags of sea-damaged cacao or of cacao sweepings
are put up, and a good deal of keenness is shown by the individuals who
buy this stuff. It is curious that a whole crowd of busy people will
allow their time to be taken up whilst there is a spirited fight between
two or three buyers for a single bag.
Whilst the London Auction Sales are of importance as fixing the prices
for the various markets, and reflecting to a certain extent the position
of supply and demand, only a fraction of the world's cacao changes hands
at the Auction Sales, the greater part of it being bought privately for
forward delivery.
_Prices and Quotations._
[Illustration: DIAGRAM SHOWING VARIATION IN PRICE OF CACAO BEANS FROM
1913 TO 1919.]
The price of cacao is liable to fluctuations like every other product,
thus in 1907 Trinidad cacao rose to one shilling a pound, whilst there
have been periods when it has only fetched sixpence per pound. On April
2nd, 1918, the Food Controller fixed the prices of the finest
qualities of the different varieties of raw cacao as follows:
British West Africa (Accra) 65s. per cwt.
Bahia }
Cameroons }
San Thomé } 85s. " "
Congo }
Grenada }
Trinidad }
Demerara } 90s. " "
Guayaquil }
Surinam }
Ceylon }
Java } 100s. " "
Samoa }
The diagram on p. 113 shows the average market price in the United
Kingdom of some of the more important cacaos before, during, and after
the war. The most striking change is the sudden rise when the Government
control was removed. All cacaos showed a substantial advance varying
from 80 to 150 per cent. on pre-war values. Further large advances have
taken place in the early months of 1920.
_The Call of the Tropics._
Many a young man, reading in some delightful book of travel, has longed
to go to the tropics and see the wonders for himself. There can be no
doubt that a sojourn in equatorial regions is one of the most educative
of experiences. In support of this I cannot do better than quote Grant
Allen, who regarded the tropics as the best of all universities. "But
above all in educational importance I rank the advantage of seeing human
nature in its primitive surroundings, far from the squalid and chilly
influences of the tail-end of the Glacial epoch." ... "We must forget
all this formal modern life; we must break away from this cramped, cold,
northern world; we must find ourselves face to face at last, in Pacific
isles or African forests, with the underlying truths of simple naked
nature."
[Illustration: GROUP OF WORKERS ON CACAO ESTATE.
Some are standing on the Drying Platform, which is the roof of the
Fermentary.]
Many will recall how Charles Kingsley's longing to see the tropics was
ultimately satisfied. In his book, in which he describes how he "At
Last" visited the West Indies, we read that he encountered a happy
Scotchman living a quiet life in the dear little island of Monos. "I
looked at the natural beauty and repose; at the human vigour and
happiness; and I said to myself, and said it often afterwards in the
West Indies: 'Why do not other people copy this wise Scot? Why should
not many a young couple, who have education, refinement, resources in
themselves, but are, happily or unhappily for them, unable to keep a
brougham and go to London balls, retreat to some such paradise as this
(and there are hundreds like it to be found in the West Indies),
leaving behind them false civilisation, and vain desires, and useless
show; and there live in simplicity and content 'The Gentle Life'?"
_The Planter's Life._
Few who go to the tropics escape their fascination, and of those that
are young, few return to colder climes. Some become overseers, others,
more fortunate, own the estates they manage. It is inadvisable for the
inexperienced to start on the enterprise of buying and planting an
estate with less capital than two or three thousand pounds; but, once
established, a cacao plantation may be looked upon as a permanent
investment, which will continue to bear and give a good yield as long as
it receives proper attention.
In the recently published _Letters of Anthony Farley_ the writer tells
how Farley encounters in South America an old college friend of his, who
in his early days was on the high road to a brilliant political career.
Here he is, a planter. He explains:
"My mother was Spanish; her brother owned this place. When he
died it came to me."
"How did your uncle hold it through the various revolutions?"
"Nothing simpler. He became an American citizen. When trouble
threatened he made a bee-line for the United States
Consulate. I'm British, of course. Well, just when I had
decided upon a political life, I found it necessary to come
here to straighten things out. One month lengthened itself
into a year. I grew fascinated. Here I felt a sense of
immense usefulness. On the mountain side my coffee-trees
flourished; down in the valley grew cacao."
"I grow mine on undulations."
"You needn't, you know, so long as you drain."
"Yes, but draining on the flat is the devil."
"Anyhow, I always liked animals--you haven't seen my pigs
yet--and horses and mules need careful tending. A cable
arrived one morning announcing an impending dissolution. I
felt like an unwilling bridegroom called to marry an ugly
bride. I invited my soul. Here, thought I to myself, are
animals and foodstuffs--good, honest food at that. If I go
back it is only to fill people's bellies with political east
wind.
"To come to the point, I decided to grow coffee and cacao. I
cabled infinite regrets. The decision once made, I was happy
as a sandboy. _J'y suis, j'y reste_, said I to myself, said
I. Nor have I ever cast one longing look behind."[8]
[8] Quoted from the _New Age_, where the _Letters of Anthony
Farley_ first appeared.
This is fiction, but I think it is true that very few, if any, who
become planters in the tropics ever return permanently to England. The
hospitality of the planters is proverbial: there must be something good
and free about the planter's life to produce men so genial and generous.
There is a picture that I often recall, and never without pleasure. A
young planter and I had, with the help of more or less willing mules,
climbed over the hills from one valley to the next. The valley we had
left is noted for its beauty, but to me it had become familiar; the
other valley I saw now for the first time. The sides were steep and
covered with trees, and I could only see one dwelling in the valley. We
reached this by a circuitous path through cacao trees. Approaching it as
we did, the bungalow seemed completely cut off from the rest of the
world. We were welcomed by the planter and his wife, and by those of the
children who were not shy. I have never seen more chubby or jolly
kiddies, and I know from the sweetness of the children that their mother
must have given them unremitting attention. I wondered indeed if she
ever left them for a moment. I knew, too, from the situation of the
bungalow in the heart of the hills that visitors were not likely to be
frequent. The planter's life is splendid for a man who likes open air
and nature, but I had sometimes thought that their wives would not find
the life so good. I was mistaken. When we came away, after riding some
distance, through a gap in the cacao we saw across the valley a group of
happy children. They saw us, and all of them, even the shy ones, waved
us adieux.
[Illustration: CARTING CACAO TO RAILWAY STATION, CEYLON.]
[Illustration: THE CARENAGE, GRENADA.]
CHAPTER V
THE MANUFACTURE OF COCOA AND CHOCOLATE
The Indians, from whom we borrow it, are not very nice in
doing it; they roast the kernels in earthen pots, then free
them from their skins, and afterwards crush and grind them
between two stones, and so form cakes of it with their hands.
_Natural History of Chocolate_, R. Brookes, 1730.
_Early Methods in the Tropics._
As the cacao bean is grown in tropical countries, it is there that we
must look for the first attempts at manufacturing from it a drink or a
foodstuff. The primitive method of preparation was very simple,
consisting in roasting the beans in a pot or on a shovel to develop
their flavour, winnowing in the wind, and then rubbing the broken
shelled beans between stones until quite fine. The curious thing is that
on grinding the cacao bean in the heat of a tropical day we do not
produce a powder but a paste. This is because half the cacao bean
consists of a fat which is liquid at 90° F., a temperature which is
reached in the shade in tropical countries. This paste was then made
into small rolls and put in a cool place to set. Thus was produced the
primitive unsweetened drinking chocolate. This is the method, which
Elizabethans, who ventured into the tangled forests of equatorial
America, found in use; and this is the method they brought home to
Europe. In the tropics these simple processes are followed to this day,
but in Europe they have undergone many elaborations and refinements.
If the reader will look at the illustration entitled "Women grinding
chocolate," he will see how the brittle roasted bean is reduced to a
paste in primitive manufacture. A stone, shaped like a rolling-pin, is
being pushed to and fro over a concave slab, on which the smashed beans
have already been reduced to a paste of a doughy consistency.
[Illustration: EARLY FACTORY METHODS.
Fig. 1 is a workman roasting the cacao in an iron kettle over a furnace.
He has to stir the beans to keep them from burning. Fig. 2 is a person
sifting and freeing the roasted kernels (which when broken into
fragments are called "_nibs_") from their husks or shell. Fig. 3 shows a
workman pounding the shell-free nibs in an iron mortar. Fig. 4
represents a workman grinding the nibs on a hard smooth stone with an
iron roller. The grinding is performed over a chafing-dish of burning
charcoal, as it is necessary, for ease of grinding, to keep the paste in
a liquid condition.]
_Early European Manufacture._
The conversion of these small scale operations into the early factory
process is well shown in the plate which I reproduce above from _Arts
and Sciences_, published in 1768.
[Illustration: WOMEN GRINDING CHOCOLATE.
From Squier "Nicaragua"]
A certain atmosphere of dreamy intellectuality is associated with
coffee, so that the roasting of it is felt to be a romantic occupation.
The same poetic atmosphere surrounded the manufacture of drinking
chocolate in the early days: the writers who revealed the secrets of its
preparation were conscious that they were giving man a new æsthetic
delight and the subject is treated lovingly and lingeringly. One, Pietro
Metastasio, went so far as to write a "cantata" describing its
manufacture. He describes the grinding as being done by a vigorous man,
and truly, to grind by hand is a very laborious operation, which happily
in more recent times has been performed by the use of power-driven
mills.
Operations on a large scale followed the founding of Fry and Sons at
Bristol in 1728, and of Lombart, "la plus ancienne chocolaterie de
France," in Paris in 1760. In Germany the first chocolate factory was
erected at Steinhunde in 1756, under the patronage of Prince Wilhelm,
whilst in America the well-known firm of Walter Baker and Co. began in a
small way in 1765. From the methods adopted in these factories have
gradually developed the modern processes which I am about to describe.
MODERN PRACTICE.
As the early stages in the manufacture of cocoa and of chocolate are
often identical, the processes which are common to both are first
described, and then some individual consideration is given to each.
(_a_) _Arrival at the Factory._
The cacao is largely stored in warehouses, from which it is removed as
required. It has remarkable keeping properties, and can be kept in a
good store for several years without loss of quality. Samples of cacao
beans in glass bottles have been found to be in perfect condition after
thirty years. Some factories have stores in which stand thousands of
bags of cacao drawn from many ports round the equator. There is
something very pleasing about huge stacks of bags of cacao seen against
the luminous white walls of a well-lighted store. The symmetry of their
construction, and the continued repetition of the same form, are never
better shown than when the men, climbing up the sides of a stack against
which they look small, unbuild the mighty heap, the bags falling on to a
continuous band which carries them jauntily out of the store.
[Illustration: PART OF A CACAO BEAN WAREHOUSE, SHOWING ENDLESS BAND
CONVEYOR.
(Messrs. Cadbury Bros'. Works, Bournville).]
(_b_) _Sorting the Beans._
As all cacao is liable to contain a little free shell, dried pulp (often
taken for twigs), threads of sacking and other foreign matter, it is
very carefully sieved and sorted before passing on to the roasting
shop. In this process curios are occasionally separated, such as palm
kernels, cowrie shells, shea butter nuts, good luck seeds and "crab's
eyes." The essential part of one type of machine (_see illustration_)
which accomplishes this sorting is an inclined revolving cylinder of
wire gauze along which the beans pass. The cylinder forms a continuous
set of sieves of different sized mesh, one sieve allowing only sand to
pass, another only very small beans or fragments of beans, and finally
one holding back anything larger than single beans (_e.g._, "cobs," that
is, a collection of two or more beans stuck together).
[Illustration: CACAO BEAN SORTING AND CLEANING MACHINE.
Reproduced by permission of Messrs. J. Baker & Sons, Ltd., Willesden.]
Another type of cleaning machine is illustrated by the diagram on the
opposite page.
This machine with its shaking sieves and blast of air makes a great
clatter and fuss. It produces, however, what the manufacturers desire--a
clean bean sorted to size.
[Illustration: DIAGRAM OF CACAO BEAN CLEANING MACHINE.
This is a box fitted with shaking sieves down which the cacao beans pass
in a current of air. Having come over some large and very powerful
magnets, which take out any nails or fragments of iron, they fall on to
a sieve (1/4-inch holes) which the engineer describes as "rapidly
reciprocating and arranged on a slight incline and mounted on spring
bars." This allows grit to pass through. The beans then roll down a
plane on to a sieve (3/8-inch holes) which separates the broken beans,
and finally on to a sieve with oblong holes which allows the beans to
fall through whilst retaining the clusters. The beans encounter a strong
blast of air which brushes from them any shell or dust clinging to
them.]
(_c_) _Roasting the Beans._
As with coffee so with cacao, the characteristic flavour and aroma are
only developed on roasting. Messrs. Bainbridge and Davies (chemists to
Messrs. Rowntree) have shown that the aroma of cacao is chiefly due to
an amazingly minute quantity (0.0006 per cent.) of linalool, a
colourless liquid with a powerful fragrant odour, a modification of
which occurs in bergamot, coriander and lavender. Everyone notices the
aromatic odour which permeates the atmosphere round a chocolate
factory. This odour is a bye-product of the roasting shop; possibly some
day an enterprising chemist will prevent its escape or capture it, and
sell it in bottles for flavouring confectionery, but for the present it
serves only to announce in an appetising way the presence of a cocoa or
chocolate works.
[Illustration: SECTION THROUGH GAS HEATED CACAO ROASTER.]
Roasting is a delicate operation requiring experience and discretion.
Even in these days of scientific management it remains as much an art as
a science. It is conducted in revolving drums to ensure constant
agitation, the drums being heated either over coke fires or by gas. Less
frequently the heating is effected by a hot blast of air or by having
inside the drum a number of pipes containing super-heated steam.
[Illustration: ROASTING CACAO BEANS.
(Messrs. Cadbury Bros'. Works, Bournville).]
The diagram and photo show one of the types of roasting machines used
at Bournville. It resembles an ordinary coffee roaster, the beans being
fed in through a hopper and heated by gas in the slowly revolving
cylinder. The beans can be heard lightly tumbling one over the other,
and the aroma round the roaster increases in fullness as they get hotter
and hotter. The temperature which the beans reach in ordinary roasting
is not very high, varying round 135° C. (275° F), and the average period
of roasting is about one hour. The amount of loss of weight on roasting
is considerable (some seven or eight per cent.), and varies with the
amount of moisture present in the raw beans.
There have been attempts to replace the æsthetic judgment of man, as to
the point at which to stop roasting, by scientific machinery. One rather
interesting machine was so devised that the cacao roasting drum was
fitted with a sort of steelyard, and this, when the loss of weight due
to roasting had reached a certain amount, swung over and rang a bell,
indicating dramatically that the roasting was finished. As beans vary
amongst other things in the percentage of moisture which they contain,
the machine has not replaced the experienced operator. He takes samples
from the drum from time to time, and when the aroma has the character
desired, the beans are rapidly discharged into a trolley with a
perforated bottom, which is brought over a cold current of air. The
object of this refinement is to stop the roasting instantly and prevent
even a suspicion of burning.
After roasting, the shell is brittle and quite free from the cotyledons
or kernel. The kernel has become glossy and friable and chocolate brown
in colour, and it crushes readily between the fingers into small angular
fragments (the "nibs" of commerce), giving off during the breaking down
a rich warm odour of chocolate.
(_d_) _Removing the Shells._
It has been stated (see _Fatty Foods_, by Revis and Bolton) that it was
formerly the practice not to remove the shell. This is incorrect, the
more usual practice from the earliest times has been to remove the
shells, though not so completely as they are removed by the efficient
machinery of to-day.
[Illustration: CACAO BEAN, SHELL AND GERM.]
In _A Curious Treatise on the Nature and Quality of Chocolate_, by
Antonio Colmenero de Ledesma (1685), we read: "And if you peel the
cacao, and take it out of its little shell, the drink thereof will be
more dainty and delicious." Willoughby, in his _Travels in Spain_,
(1664), writes: "They first toast the berries to get off the husk," and
R. Brookes, in the _Natural History of Chocolate_ (1730), says: "The
Indians ... roast the kernels in earthen pots, then free them from their
skins, and afterwards crush and grind them between two stones."
He further definitely recommends that the beans "be roasted enough to
have their skins come off easily, which should be done one by one,
laying them apart ... for these skins being left among the chocolate,
will not dissolve in any liquor, nor even in the stomach, and fall to
the bottom of the chocolate-cups as if the kernels had not been
cleaned."
That the "Indian" practice of removing the shells was followed from the
commencement of the industry in England, is shown by the old plate which
we have reproduced on p. 120 from _Arts and Sciences_.
The removal of the shell, which in the raw condition is tough and
adheres to the kernel, is greatly facilitated by roasting. If we place a
roasted bean in the palm of the hand and press it with the thumb, the
whole cracks up into crisp pieces. It is now quite easy to blow away the
thin pieces of shell because they offer a greater surface to the air and
are lighter than the compact little lumps or "nibs" which are left
behind. This illustrates the principle of all shelling or husking
machines.
(_e_) _Breaking the Bean into Fragments._
The problem is to break down the bean to just the right size. The pieces
must be sufficiently small to allow the nib and shell readily to part
company, but it is important to remember that the smaller the pieces of
shell and nib, the less efficient will the winnowing be, and it is usual
to break the beans whilst they are still warm to avoid producing
particles of extreme fineness. The breaking down may be accomplished by
passing the beans through a pair of rollers at such a distance apart
that the bean is cracked without being crushed. Or it may be effected in
other ways, _e.g._, by the use of an adjustable serrated cone revolving
in a serrated conical case. In the diagram they are called kibbling
cones.
[Illustration: SECTION THROUGH KIBBLING CONES AND GERM SCREENS.]
(_f_) _Separating the Germs._
About one per cent. of the cacao bean fragments consists of "germs." The
"germ" is the radicle of the cacao seed, or that part of the cacao seed
which on germination forms the root. The germs are small and rod-shaped,
and being very hard are generally assumed to be less digestible than the
nib. They are separated by being passed through revolving gauze drums,
the holes in which are the same size and shape as the germs, so that the
germs pass through whilst the nib is retained. If a freakish carpenter
were to try separating shop-floor sweepings, consisting of a jumble of
chunks of wood (nib), shavings (shell) and nails (germ) by sieving
through a grid-iron, he would find that not only the nails passed
through but also some sawdust and fine shavings. So in the above machine
the finer nib and shell pass through with the germ. This germ mixture,
known as "smalls" is dealt with in a special machine, whilst the larger
nib and shell are conveyed to the chief winnowing machine. In this
machine the mixture is first sorted according to size and then the nib
and shell separated from one another. The mixture is passed down long
revolving cylindrical sieves and encounters a larger and larger mesh as
it proceeds, and thus becomes sieved into various sizes. The separation
of the shell from the nib is now effected by a powerful current of air,
the large nib falling against the current, whilst the shell is carried
with it and drops into another compartment. It is amusing to stand and
watch the continuous stream of nibs rushing down, like hail in a storm,
into the screw conveyor.
[Illustration: SECTION THROUGH WINNOWING MACHINE.]
This is the process in essence--to follow the various partially
separated mixtures of shell and nib through the several further
separating machines would be tedious; it is sufficient for the reader
to know that after the most elaborate precautions have been taken the
nib still contains about one per cent. of shell, and that the nib
obtained is only 78.5 per cent. of the weight of raw beans originally
taken. Most of the larger makers of cocoa produce nib containing less
than two per cent. of shell, a standard which can only be maintained by
continuous vigilance.
[Illustration: CACAO GRINDING.
A battery of horizontal grinding mills, by which the cacao nibs are
ground to paste (Messrs. Cadbury Bros., Bournville.)]
The shell, the only waste material of any importance produced in a
chocolate factory, goes straight into sacks ready for sale. The pure
cacao nibs (once an important article of commerce) proceed to the
blenders and thence to the grinding mill.
(_g_) _Blending._
We have seen that the beans are roasted separately according to their
kind and country so as to develop in each its characteristic flavour.
The pure nib is now blended in proportions which are carefully chosen to
attain the result desired.
(_h_) _Grinding the Cacao Nibs to Produce Mass._
In this process, by the mere act of grinding, the miracle is performed
of converting the brittle fragments of the cacao bean into a
chocolate-coloured fluid. Half of the cacao bean is fat, and the
grinding breaks up the cells and liberates the fat, which at blood heat
melts to an oil. Any of the various machines used in the industries for
grinding might be used, but a special type of mill has been devised for
the purpose.
In the grinding room of a cocoa factory one becomes almost hypnotised by
a hundred of these circular mill-stones that rotate incessantly day and
night. In Messrs. Fry's factory the "giddy motion of the whirling mill"
is very much increased by a number of magnificent horizontal driving
wheels, each some 20 feet in diameter, which form, as it were, a
revolving ceiling to the room. Your fascinated gaze beholds "two or
three vast circles, that have their revolving satellites like moons,
each on its own axis, and each governed by master wheels. Watch them for
any length of time and you might find yourself presently going round and
round with them until you whirled yourself out of existence, like the
gyrating maiden in the fairy tale."
In this type of grinding machine one mill stone rotates on a fixed
stone. The cacao nib falls from a hopper through a hole in the centre of
the upper stone and, owing to the manner in which grooves are cut in the
two surfaces in contact, is gradually dragged between the stones. The
grooves are so cut in the two stones that they point in opposite
directions, and as the one stone revolves on the other, a slicing or
shearing action is produced. The friction, due to the slicing and
shearing of the nib, keeps the stones hot, and they become sufficiently
warm to melt the fat in the ground nib, so that there oozes from the
outer edge of the bottom or fixed stone a more or less viscous liquid or
paste. This finely ground nib is known as "mass." It is simply liquified
cacao bean, and solidifies on cooling to a chocolate coloured block.
[Illustration: SECTION THROUGH GRINDING STONES.]
This "mass" may be used for the production of either cocoa or chocolate.
When part of the fat (cacao butter) is _taken away_ the residue may be
made to yield cocoa. When sugar and cacao butter are _added_ it yields
eating chocolate. Thus the two industries are seen to be
inter-dependent, the cacao butter which is pressed out of the mass in
the manufacture of cocoa being used up in the production of chocolate.
The manufacture of cocoa will first be considered.
(_i_) _Pressing out the excess of Butter._
The liquified cacao bean or "mass," simply mixed with sugar and cooled
until it becomes a hard cake, has been used by the British Navy for a
hundred years or more for the preparation of Jack's cup of cocoa. It
produces a fine rich drink much appreciated by our hardy seamen, but it
is somewhat too fatty to mix evenly with water, and too rich to be
suitable for those with delicate digestions. Hence for the ordinary
cocoa of commerce it is usual to remove a portion of this fat.
[Illustration: A CACAO PRESS.
Reproduced by permission of Messrs. Lake, Orr & Co., Ltd.]
If "mass" be put into a cloth and pressed, a golden oil (melted cacao
butter) oozes through the cloth. In practice this extraction of the
butter is done in various types of presses. In one of the most
frequently used types, the mass is poured into circular steel pots, the
top and bottom of which are loose perforated plates lined with felt
pads. A number of such pots are placed one above another, and then
rammed together by a powerful hydraulic ram. They look like the parts of
a slowly collapsing telescope. The "mass" is only gently pressed at
first, but as the butter flows away and the material in the pot becomes
stiffer, it is subjected to a gradually increasing pressure. The ram,
being under pressure supplied by pumps, pushes up with enormous force.
The steel pots have to be sufficiently strong to bear a great strain, as
the ram often exerts a pressure of 6,000 pounds per square inch. When
the required amount of butter has been pressed out, the pot is found to
contain not a paste, but a hard dry cake of compressed cocoa. The
liquified cacao bean put into the pots contains 54 to 55 per cent. of
butter, whilst the cocoa press-cake taken out usually contains only 25
to 30 per cent. The expressed butter flows away and is filtered and
solidified (see page 158). All that it is necessary to do to obtain
cocoa from the press cake is to powder it.
[Illustration: SECTION THROUGH CACAO PRESS-POT AND RAM-PLATE.]
(_j_) _Breaking Down the Press Cake to Cocoa Powder._
The slabs of press-cake are so hard and tough that if one were banged on
a man's head it would probably stun him. They are broken down in a
crushing mill, the inside of which is as full of terrible teeth as a
giant's mouth, until the fragments are small enough to grind on steel
rollers.
(_k_) _Sieving._
As fineness is a very important quality of cocoa, the powder so obtained
is very carefully sieved. This is effected by shaking the powder into an
inclined rotating drum which is covered with silk gauze. In the cocoa
which passes through this fine silk sieve, the average length of the
individual particles is about 0.001 inch, whilst in first-class
productions the size of the larger particles in the cocoa does not
average more than 0.002 inch. Indeed, the cocoa powder is so fine that
in spite of all precautions a certain amount always floats about in the
air of sieving rooms, and covers everything with a brown film.
(_l_) _Packing._
The cocoa powder is taken to the packing rooms. Here the tedious
weighing by hand has been replaced by ingenious machines, which deliver
with remarkable accuracy a definite weight of cocoa into the paper bag
which lines the tin. The tins are then labelled and packed in cases
ready for the grocer.
CHAPTER VI
THE MANUFACTURE OF CHOCOLATE
Since the great improvements of the steam engine, it is
astonishing to what a variety of manufactures this useful
machine has been applied: yet it does not a little excite our
surprise that one is used for the trifling object of grinding
chocolate.
It is, however, a fact, or at least, we are credibly
informed, that Mr. Fry, of Bristol, has in his new
manufactory one of these engines for the sole purpose of
manufacturing chocolate and cocoa.
_Berrow's Worcester Journal,_ June 7th, 1798.
What I am about to write under this heading will only be of a general
character. Those who require a more detailed exposition are referred to
the standard works given at the end of the chapter. In these, full and
accurate information will be found. The information published in modern
Encyclopædias, etc., concerning the manufacture of chocolate is not
always as reliable as one might expect. Thus it states in Jack's
excellent _Reference Book_ (1914) that "Chocolate is made by the
addition of water and sugar." The use of water in the manufacture of
chocolate is contrary to all usual practice, so much so that great
interest was aroused in the trade some years ago by the statement that
water was being used by a firm in Germany.
SPECIMEN OUTLINE RECIPE.
Ingredients required for _plain eating-chocolate_.
Cacao nib or mass 33 parts.
Cacao butter 13 "
Sugar 53-3/4 "
Flavouring 1/4 "
-------------
100 parts
Since eating-chocolate is produced by mixing sugar and cacao nib, with
or without flavouring materials, and reducing to a fine homogeneous
mass, the principles underlying its manufacture are obviously simple,
yet when we come to consider the production of a modern high-class
chocolate we find the processes involved are somewhat elaborate.
(_a_) _Preparing the Nib or "Mass."_
The nib is obtained in exactly the same way as in the manufacture of
cocoa, the beans being cleaned, roasted and shelled. The roasting,
however, is generally somewhat lighter for chocolate than for cocoa. The
nibs produced may be used as they are, or they may be first ground to
"mass" by means of mill-stones as described above.
(_b_) _Mixing in the Sugar._
Some makers use clear crystalline granulated sugar, others disintegrate
loaf sugar to a beautiful snow-white flour. The nib, coarse or finely
ground, is mixed with the sugar in a kind of edge-runner or
grinding-mixer, called a _mélangeur_. As is seen in the photo, the
_mélangeur_ consists of two heavy mill-stones which are supported on a
granite floor. This floor revolves and causes the stationary mill-stones
to rotate on their axes, so that although they run rapidly, like a man
on a "joy wheel," they make no headway. The material is prevented from
accumulating at the sides by curved scrapers, which gracefully deflect
the stream of material to the part of the revolving floor which runs
under the mill-stones. Thus the sugar and nib are mixed and crushed. As
the mixture usually becomes like dough in consistency, it can be neatly
removed from the _mélangeur_ with a shovel. The operator rests a shovel
lightly on the revolving floor, and the material mounts into a heap upon
it.
[Illustration: CHOCOLATE MELANGEUR.
Reproduced by permission of Messrs. Lake. Orr & Coy. Ltd.]
[Illustration: PLAN OF CHOCOLATE MELANGEUR.]
[Illustration: CHOCOLATE REFINING MACHINE.
Reproduced by permission of Messrs. J. Baker & Sons, Willesden.]
(_c_) _Grinding the Mixture._
The mixture is now passed through a mill, which has been described as
looking like a multiple mangle. The object of this is to break down the
sugar and cacao to smaller particles. The rolls may be made either of
granite (more strictly speaking, of quartz diorite) or of polished
chilled cast iron. Chilled cast iron rolls have the advantage that they
can be kept cool by having water flowing through them. A skilled
operator is required to set the rolls in order that they may give a
large and satisfactory output. The cylinders in contact run at different
speeds, and, as will be seen in the diagram, the chocolate always clings
to the roll which is revolving with the greater velocity, and is
delivered from the rolls either as a curtain of chocolate or as a spray
of chocolate powder. It is very striking to see the soft
chocolate-coloured dough become, after merely passing between the rolls,
a dry powder--the explanation is that the sugar having been more finely
crushed now requires a greater quantity of cacao butter to lubricate it
before the mixture can again become plastic. The chocolate in its
various stages of manufacture, should be kept warm or it will solidify
and much time and heat (and possibly temper) will be absorbed in
remelting it; for this and other reasons most chocolate factories have a
number of hot rooms, in which the chocolate is stored whilst waiting to
pass on to the next operation. The dry powder coming from the rolls is
either taken to a hot room, or at once mixed in a warm _mélangeur_,
where curiously enough the whole becomes once again of the consistency
of dough. The grinding between the rolls and the mixing in the
_mélangeur_ are repeated any number of times until the chocolate is of
the desired fineness. Whilst there are a few people who like the clean,
hard feel of sugar crystals between the teeth, the present-day taste is
all for very smooth and highly refined chocolate; hence the grinding
operation is one of the most important in the factory, and is checked at
the works at Bournville by measuring with a microscope the size of the
particles. The cost of fine grinding is considerable, for whilst the
first breaking down of the cacao nibs and sugar crystals is
comparatively easy, it is found that as the particles of chocolate get
finer the cost of further reduction increases by leaps and bounds. The
chocolate may now proceed direct to the moulding rooms or it may first
be conched.
[Illustration: GRINDING CACAO NIB AND SUGAR.
(Messrs. Cadbury Bros., Bournville).]
[Illustration: SECTION THROUGH CHOCOLATE GRINDING ROLLS.]
(_d_) _Conching._
We now come to an extraordinary process which is said to have been
originally introduced to satisfy a fastidious taste that demanded a
chocolate which readily melted in the mouth and yet had not the cloying
effect which is produced by excess of cacao butter. In this process the
chocolate is put in a vessel shaped something like a shell (hence called
a _conche_), and a heavy roller is pushed to and fro in the chocolate.
Although the conche is considered to have revolutionized the chocolate
industry, it will remain to the uninitiated a curious sight to see a
room full of machines engaged in pummelling chocolate day and night.
There is no general agreement as to exactly how the conche produces its
effects--from the scientific point of view the changes are complex and
elusive, and too technical to explain here--but it is well known that if
this process is continued for periods varying according to the result
desired from a few hours to a week, characteristic changes occur which
make the chocolate a more mellow and finished confection, having more or
less the velvet feel of _chocolat fondant_.
(_e_) _Flavouring._
Art is shown not only in the choice of the cacao beans but also in the
selection of spices and essences, for, whilst the fundamental flavour of
a chocolate is determined by the blend of beans and the method of
manufacture, the piquancy and special character are often obtained by
the addition of minute quantities of flavourings. The point in the
manufacture at which the flavour is added is as late as possible so as
to avoid the possible loss of aroma in handling. The flavours used
include cardamom, cassia, cinnamon, cloves, coriander, lemon, mace, and
last but most popular of all, the vanilla pod or vanillin. Some makers
use the choice spices themselves, others prefer their essential oils.
Many other nutty, fragrant and aromatic substances have been used; of
these we may mention almonds, coffee, musk, ambergris, gum benzoin and
balsam of Peru. The English like delicately flavoured confections,
whilst the Spanish follow the old custom of heavily spicing the
chocolate. In ancient recipes we read of the use of white and red
peppers, and the addition of hot spices was defended and even
recommended on purely philosophical grounds. It was given, in the
strange jargon of the Peripatetics, as a dictum that chocolate is by
nature cold and dry and therefore ought to be mixed with things which
are hot.
[Illustration: "CONCHE" MACHINES.
Reproduced by permission of Messrs. J. Baker & Sons, Willesden.]
[Illustration: SECTION THROUGH "CONCHE" MACHINE.]
[Illustration: MACHINES FOR MIXING OR "CONCHING" CHOCOLATE.]
(_f_) _Moulding._
Small quantities of cacao butter will have been added to the chocolate
at various stages, and hence the finished product is quite plastic. It
is now brought from the hot room (or the _mélangeur_ or the conche) to
the moulding rooms. Before moulding, the chocolate is passed through a
machine, known as a compressor, which removes air-bubbles. This is a
necessary process, as people would not care to purchase chocolate full
of holes. As in the previous operations, every effort has been made to
produce a chocolate of smooth texture and fine flavour, so in the
moulding rooms skill is exercised in converting the plastic mass into
hard bars and cakes, which snap when broken and which have a pleasant
appearance. Well-moulded chocolate has a good gloss, a rich colour and a
correct shape.
[Illustration: CHOCOLATE SHAKING TABLE.]
The most important factor in obtaining a good appearance is the
temperature, and chocolate is frequently passed through a machine
(called a tempering machine) merely to give it the desired temperature.
A suitable temperature for moulding, according to Zipperer, varies from
28° C. on a hot summer's day to 32° C. on a winter's day. As the melting
point of cacao butter is about 32° C, it will be realized that the
butter is super-cooled and is ready to crystallize on the slightest
provocation. Each mould has to contain the same quantity of chocolate.
Weighing by hand has been abandoned in favour of a machine which
automatically deposits a definite weight, such as a quarter or half a
pound, of the chocolate paste on each mould. The chocolate stands up
like a lump of dough and has to be persuaded to lie down and fill the
mould. This can be most effectively accomplished by banging the mould up
and down on a table. In the factory the method used is to place the
moulds on rocking tables which rise gradually and fall with a bump. The
diagram will make clear how these vibrating tables are worked by means
of ratchet wheels. Rocking tables are made which are silent in action,
but the moulds jerkily dancing about on the table make a very lively
clatter, such a noise as might be produced by a regiment of mad cavalry
crossing a courtyard. During the shaking-up the chocolate fills every
crevice of the mould, and any bubbles, which if left in would spoil the
appearance of the chocolate, rise to the top. The chocolate then passes
on to an endless band which conducts the mould through a chamber in
which cold air is moving. As the chocolate cools, it solidifies and
contracts so that it comes out of the mould clean and bright. In this
way are produced the familiar sticks and cakes of chocolate. A similar
method is used in producing "Croquettes" and the small tablets known as
"Neapolitans." Other forms require more elaborate moulds; thus the
chocolate eggs, which fill the confectioners' windows just before
Easter, are generally hollow, unless they are very small, and are made
in two halves by pressing chocolate in egg-shaped moulds and then
uniting the two halves. Chocolate cremes, caramels, almonds and, in
fact, fancy "chocolates" generally, are produced in quite a different
manner. For these _chocolats de fantaisie_ a rather liquid chocolate is
required known as covering chocolate.
SPECIMEN OUTLINE RECIPE.
Ingredients required for _chocolate for covering cremes_, etc.:
Cacao nib or mass 30 parts
Cacao butter 20 "
Sugar 49-3/4 "
Flavouring 1/4 "
-------------
100 parts
It is prepared in exactly the same way as ordinary eating chocolate,
save that more butter is added to make it flow readily, so that in the
melted condition it has about the same consistency as cream. The
operations so far described are conducted by men, but the covering of
cremes and the packing of the finished chocolates into boxes are
performed by girls. Covering is light work requiring a delicate touch,
and if, as is usual, it is done in bright airy rooms, is a pleasant
occupation.
[Illustration: GIRLS COVERING, OR DIPPING, CREMES, ETC.
(Messrs. Cadbury Bros., Bournville.)]
The girl sits with a small bowl of warm liquid chocolate in front of
her, and on one side the "centres" (cremes, caramels, ginger, nuts,
etc.) ready for covering with chocolate. The chocolate must be at just
the right temperature, which is 88 °F., or 31° C. She takes one of the
"centres," say a vanilla creme, on her fork and dips it beneath the
chocolate. When she draws it out, the white creme is completely covered
in brown chocolate and, without touching it with her finger, she deftly
places it on a piece of smooth paper. A little twirl of the fork or
drawing a prong across the chocolate will give the characteristic
marking on the top of the chocolate creme. The chocolate rapidly sets to
a crisp film enveloping the soft creme. There are in use in many
chocolate factories some very ingenious covering machines, invented in
1903, which, as they clothe cremes in a robe of chocolate, are known as
"enrobers"; it is doubtful, however, if the chocolates so produced have
even quite so good an appearance as when the covering is done by hand.
[Illustration: THE ENROBER.
A machine for covering cremes, etc., with chocolate.
Reproduced by permission of Messrs. Savy Jeanjean & Co., Paris.]
It would be agreeable at this point to describe the making of cremes
(which, by the way, contrary to the opinion of most writers, contain no
cream or butter), and other products of the confectioner's art, but it
would take us beyond the scope of the present book. We will only remind
our readers of the great variety of comestibles and confections which
are covered in chocolate--pistachio nut, roasted almonds, pralines,
biscuits, walnuts, nougat, montelimar, fruits, fruit cremes, jellies,
Turkish delight, marshmallows, caramels, pine-apple, noisette, and other
delicacies.
[Illustration: A CONFECTIONERY ROOM AT MESSRS. CADBURY'S WORKS AT
BOURNVILLE.
Cutting almond paste by hand moulds.]
_Milk Chocolate._
We owe the introduction of this excellent food and confection to the
researches of M.D. Peter of Vevey, in Switzerland, who produced milk
chocolate as early as 1876. Many of our older readers will remember
their delight when in the eighteen nineties they first tasted Peter's
milk chocolate. Later the then little firm of Cailler, realising the
importance of having the factory on the very spot where rich milk was
produced in abundance, established a works near Gruyères. This grew
rapidly and soon became the largest factory in Switzerland. The sound
principle of having your factory in the heart of a milk producing area
was adopted by Cadbury's, who built milk condensing factories at the
ancient village of Frampton-on-Severn, in Gloucestershire, and at
Knighton, near Newport, Salop. Before the war these two factories
together condensed from two to three million gallons of milk a year.
Whilst the amount of milk used in England for making milk chocolate
appears very great when expressed in gallons, it is seen to be very
small (being only about one-half of one per cent.) when expressed as a
fraction of the total milk production. Milk chocolate is not made from
milk produced in the winter, when milk is scarce, but from milk produced
in the spring and summer when there is milk in excess of the usual
household requirements, and when it is rich and creamy. The importance
of not interfering with the normal milk supply to local customers is
appreciated by the chocolate makers, who take steps to prevent this. It
will interest public analysts and others to know that Cadbury's have had
no difficulty in making it a stipulation in their contracts with the
vendors that the milk supplied to them shall contain at least 3.5 per
cent. of butter fat, a 17 per cent. increase on the minimum fixed by
the Government.
[Illustration: FACTORY AT FRAMPTON, GLOUCESTERSHIRE, AT WHICH MILK IS
EVAPORATED FOR MILK CHOCOLATE MANUFACTURE.
(Messrs. Cadbury Bros., Ltd.).]
SPECIMEN OUTLINE RECIPE.
Ingredients required for _milk chocolate_:
Cacao nib or mass (from 10 to 20 per cent.), say 10
Cacao Butter 20
Sugar 44-3/4
Milk solids (from 15 to 25 per cent.), say 25=(200 parts
of milk.)
Flavouring 1/4
--------
100
Milk chocolate consists of an intimate mixture of cacao nib, sugar and
milk, condensed by evaporation. The manner in which the milk is mixed
with the cacao nib is a matter of taste, and the art of combining milk
with chocolate, so as to retain the full flavour of each, has engaged
the attention of many experts. At present there is no general method of
manufacture--each maker has his own secret processes, which generally
include the use of grinding mills, _mélangeurs_, conches, moulding
machines, etc., as with plain chocolate. We cannot do better than refer
those who wish to know more of this, or other branch of the chocolate
industry, to the following English, French and German standard works on
Chocolate Manufacture:
_Cocoa and Chocolate, Their Chemistry and Manufacture_, by R.
Whymper (Churchill).
_Fabrication du Chocolat_, by Fritsch (Scientifique et
Industrielle).
_The Manufacture of Chocolate_, by Dr. Paul Zipperer (Spon).
CHAPTER VII
BY-PRODUCTS OF THE COCOA AND CHOCOLATE INDUSTRY
Of Cacao Butter.--
It is the best and most natural _Pomatum_ for Ladies to
_clear_ and _plump_ the Skin when it is _dry, rough_, or
_shrivel'd_, without making it appear either _fat_ or
_shining_. The _Spanish Women_ at _Mexico_ use it very much,
and it is highly esteem'd by them.
_The Natural History of Chocolate_, R. Brookes, 1730.
Of Cacao Shell.--
In Russia and Belgium many families take Caravello at
breakfast. This is nothing but cocoa husk, washed and then
boiled in milk.
_Chocolate and Confectionery Manufacture_, A. Jacoutot.
_Cacao Butter._
In that very able compilation, _Allen's Organic Analysis_, Mr. Leonard
Archbutt states (Vol. II, p. 176) that cacao butter "is obtained in
large quantities as a by-product in the manufacture of chocolate." This
is repeated in the excellent book on _Oils_, by C.A. Mitchell (Common
Commodities of Commerce series). These statements are, of course,
incorrect. We have seen that cacao butter is obtained as a by-product in
the manufacture of cocoa, and is _consumed_ in large quantities in the
manufacture of chocolate. When, during the war, the use of sugar for
chocolate-making was restricted and little chocolate was produced, the
cacao butter formerly used in this industry was freed for other
purposes. Thus there was plenty of cacao butter available at a time when
other fats were scarce. Cacao butter has a pleasant, bland taste
resembling cocoa. The cocoa flavour is very persistent, as many
experimenters found to their regret in their efforts to produce a
tasteless cacao butter which could be used as margarine or for general
purposes in cooking. The scarcity of edible fats during the war forced
the confectioners to try cacao butter, which in normal times is too
expensive for them to use, and as a result a very large amount was
employed in making biscuits and confectionery.
Cacao butter runs hot from the presses as an amber-coloured oil, and
after nitration, sets to a pale golden yellow wax-like fat. The butter,
which the pharmacist sells, is sometimes white and odourless, having
been bleached and deodorized. The butter as produced is always pale
yellow in colour, with a semi-crystalline or granular fracture and an
agreeable taste and odour resembling cocoa or chocolate.
Cacao butter has such remarkable keeping properties (which would appear
to depend on the aromatic substances which it contains), that a myth has
arisen that it will keep for ever. The fable finds many believers even
in scientific circles; thus W.H. Johnson, in the _Imperial Institute
Handbook_ on _Cocoa_, states that: "When pure, it has the peculiar
property of not becoming rancid, however long it may be kept." Whilst
this overstates the case, we find that under suitable conditions cacao
butter will remain fresh and good for several years. Cacao butter has
rather a low melting point (90° F.), so that whilst it is a hard, almost
brittle, solid at ordinary temperatures, it melts readily when in
contact with the human body (blood heat 98° F). This property, together
with its remarkable stability, makes it useful for ointments, pomades,
suppositories, pessaries and other pharmaceutical preparations; it also
explains why actors have found it convenient for the removal of grease
paint. The recognition of the value of cacao butter for cosmetic
purposes dates from very early days; thus in Colmenero de Ledesma's
_Curious Treatise on the Nature and Quality of Chocolate_ (printed at
the Green Dragon, 1685), we read: "That they draw from the cacao a great
quantity of butter, which they use to make their faces shine, which I
have seen practised in the Indies by the Spanish women born there."
This, evidently, was one way of shining in society.
Cacao butter has been put to many other uses, thus it has been employed
in the preparation of perfumes, but the great bulk of the cacao butter
produced is used up by the chocolate maker. For making chocolate it is
ideal, and the demand for it for this purpose is so great that
substitutes have been found and offered for sale. Until recently these
fats, coconut stearine and others, could be ignored by the reputable
chocolate makers as the confection produced by their use was inferior to
true chocolate both in taste and in keeping properties. In recent times
the oils and fats of tropical nuts and fruits have been thoroughly
investigated in the eager search for new fats, and new substitutes, such
as illipé butter, have been introduced, the properties of which closely
resemble those of cacao butter.
For the information of chemists we may state that the analytical figures
for genuine cacao butter, as obtained in the cocoa factory, are as
follow:
ANALYTICAL FIGURES FOR CACAO BUTTER.
Specific Gravity (at 99° C. to water at 15.5° C.) .858 to .865
Melting Point 32°C. to 34°C.
Titer (fatty acids) 49°C. to 50°C.
Iodine Absorbed 34% to 38%
Refraction (Butyro-Refractometer) at 40°C. 45.6° to 46.5°
Saponification Value 192 to 198
Valenta 94°C. to 96°C.
Reichert Meissel Value 1.0
Polenske Value 0.5
Kirschner " 0.5
Shrewsbury and Knapp Value 14 to 15
Unsaponifiable matter 0.3% to 0.8%
Mineral matter 0.02% to 0.05%
Acidity (as oleic acid) 0.6% to 2.0%
Although the trade in cacao butter is considerable, there were, before
the war, only two countries that could really be considered as exporters
of cacao butter; in other words, there were only two countries, namely,
Holland and Germany, pressing out more cacao butter in the production of
cocoa than they absorbed in making chocolate:
EXPORT OF CACAO BUTTER.
Tons (of 1000 kilogrammes)
1911 1912 1913
Holland 4,657 5,472 7,160
Germany 3,611 3,581 1,960
----- ----- -----
8,268 9,053 9,120
----- ----- -----
During the war America appeared for the first time in her history as an
exporter of cacao butter. Hitherto she was one of the principal
importers, as will be seen in the following table:
IMPORTS OF CACAO BUTTER.
Tons (of 1000 kilogrammes)
1912 1913
United States 1,842 1,634
Switzerland 1,821 1,634
Belgium 1,127 1,197
Austria-Hungary 1,062 1,190
Russia 955 1,197
England 495 934
The next table shows the imports (expressed in English tons) into the
United Kingdom in more recent years:
IMPORTS OF CACAO BUTTER.
Year 1912 1913 1914 1915 1916 1917
Tons 477 912 1512 599 962 675
The wholesale price of cacao butter has varied in the last six years
from 1/3 per pound to 2/11 per pound, and was fixed in 1918 by the Food
Controller at 1/6 per pound (retail price 2/- per pound). The control
was removed in 1919, and immediately the wholesale price rose to 2/8 per
pound.
_Cacao Shell._
Although I have described cacao butter as a by-product, the only true
by-product of the combined cocoa and chocolate industry is cacao shell.
I explained in the previous chapter how it is separated from the roasted
bean. As they come from the husking or winnowing machine, the larger
fragments of shell resemble the shell of monkey-nuts (ground nuts or pea
nuts), except that the cacao shells are thinner, more brittle and of a
richer brown colour. The shell has a pleasant odour in which a little
true cocoa aroma can be detected. The small pieces of shell look like
bran, and, if the shell be powdered, the product is wonderfully like
cocoa in appearance, though not in taste or smell. As the raw cacao bean
contains on the average about twelve and a half per cent. of shell, it
is evident that the world production must be considerable (about 36,000
tons a year), and since it is not legitimately employed in cocoa, the
brains of inventors have been busy trying to find a use for it. In some
industries the by-product has proved on investigation to be of greater
value than the principal product--a good instance of this is glycerine
as a by-product in soap manufacture--but no use for the husk or shell of
cacao, which gives it any considerable commercial value, has yet been
discovered. There are signs, however, that its possible uses are being
considered and appreciated.
For years small quantities of cacao shell, under the name of
"miserables," have been used in Ireland and other countries for
producing a dilute infusion for drinking. Although this "cocoa tea" is
not unpleasant, and has mild stimulating properties, it has never been
popular, and even during the war, when it was widely advertised and sold
in England under fancy names at fancy prices, it never had a large or
enthusiastic body of consumers.
In normal times the cocoa manufacturer has no difficulty in disposing of
his shell to cattle-food makers and others, but during 1915 when the
train service was so defective, and transport by any other means almost
impossible, the manufacturers of cocoa and chocolate were unable to get
the shell away from their factories, and had large accumulations of it
filling up valuable store space. In these circumstances they attempted
to find a use near at hand. It was tried with moderate success as a fuel
and a considerable quantity was burned in a special type of gas-producer
intended for wood.
Cacao shell has a high nitrogenous content, and if burned yields about
67 lbs. of potassium carbonate per ton. In the Annual Report of the
Experimental Farms in Canada, (1898, p. 151 and 1899, p. 851,) accounts
are given of the use of cacao shell as a manure. The results given are
encouraging, and experiments were made at Bournville. At first these
were only moderately successful, because the shell is extremely stable
and decomposes in the ground very slowly indeed. Then the head gardener
tried hastening the decomposition by placing the shell in a heap,
soaking with water and turning several times before use. In this way the
shell was converted into a decomposing mass before being applied to the
ground, and gave excellent results both as a manure and as a lightener
of heavy soils.
On the Continent the small amount of cacao butter which the shell
contains is extracted from it by volatile solvents. The "shell butter"
so obtained is very inferior to ordinary cacao butter, and as usually
put on the market, has an unpleasant taste, and an odour which reminds
one faintly of an old tobacco-pipe. In this unrefined condition it is
obviously unsuitable for edible purposes.
Shell contains about one per cent. of _theobromine_ (dimethylxanthine).
This is a very valuable chemical substance (see remarks in chapter on
Food Value of Cocoa and Chocolate), and the extraction of theobromine
from shell is already practised on a large scale, and promises to be a
profitable industry. Ordinary commercial samples of shell contain from
1.2 to 1.4 per cent. of theobromine. Those interested should study the
very ingenious process of Messrs. Grousseau and Vicongne (Patent No.
120,178). Many other uses of cacao shell have been made and suggested;
thus it has been used for the production of a good coffee substitute,
and also, during the shortage of sawdust, as a packing material, but its
most important use at the present time is as cattle food, and its most
important abuse as an adulterant of cocoa.
The value of cacao shell as cattle food has been known for a long time,
and is indicated in the following analysis by Smetham (in the Journal of
the Lancashire Agricultural Society, 1914).
ANALYSIS OF CACAO SHELL.
Water 9.30
Fat 3.83
Mineral Matter 8.20
Albuminoids 18.81
Fibre 13.85
Digestible Carbohydrates 46.01
------
100.00
------
From these figures Smetham calculates the food units as 102, so that it
is evident that cacao shell occupies a good position when compared with
other fodders:
FOOD UNITS.
Linseed cake 133
Oatmeal 117
Bran 109
English wheat 106
_Cacao shells_ 102
Maize (new crop) 99
Meadow hay 68
Rice husks 43
Wheat straw 41
Mangels 12
These analytical results have been supported by practical feeding
experiments in America and Germany (see full account in Zipperer's book,
_The Manufacture of Chocolate_). Prof. Faelli, in Turin, obtained, by
giving cacao shell to cows, an increase in both the quantity and quality
of the milk. More recent experience seems to indicate that it is unwise
to put a very high percentage of cacao shell in a cattle food; in small
quantities in compound feeding cakes, etc., as an appetiser it has been
used for years with good results. (Further particulars will be found in
_Cacao Shells as Fodder_, by A.W. Knapp, _Tropical Life_, 1916, p. 154,
and in _The Separation and Uses of Cacao Shell_, Society of Chemical
Industry's Journal, 1918, 240). The price of shell has shown great
variation. The following figures are for the grade of shell which is
almost entirely free from cocoa:
CACAO SHELL.
AVERAGE PRICE PER TON.
Year 1912 1913 1914 1915 1916 1917 1918 1919
Price 65/- 70/- 70/- 70/- 90/- 128/- 284/- 161/-
PRICE PER FOOD UNIT.
_July_, 1915. _Jan._, 1919.
_s._ _d._ _s._ _d._
English Oats 3 1-1/2 3 8
Cotton Seed Cake 2 5 3 11
Linseed Cake 1 7 3 5
Brewers Grains (dried) 1 6-1/2 3 8-1/2
Decorticated Cotton Cake 1 6 3 3-1/2
Cacao Shell 8-1/4 1 4-1/2
The above table speaks for itself; the figures are from the Journal of
the Board of Agriculture; I have added cacao shell for comparison.
CHAPTER VIII
THE COMPOSITION AND FOOD VALUE OF COCOA AND CHOCOLATE
Before the Spaniards made themselves Masters of Mexico, no
other drink was esteem'd but that of cocoa; none caring for
wine, notwithstanding the soil produces vines everywhere in
great abundance of itself.
John Ogilvy's _America_, 1671.
The early writers on chocolate generally became lyrical when they wrote
of its value as a food. Thus in the _Natural History of Chocolate_, by
R. Brookes (1730), we read that an ounce of chocolate contains as much
nourishment as a pound of beef, that a woman and a child, and even a
councillor, lived on chocolate alone for a long period, and further:
"Before chocolate was known in Europe, good old wine was called the milk
of old men; but this title is now applied with greater reason to
chocolate, since its use has become so common, that it has been
perceived that chocolate is, with respect to them, what milk is to
infants."
A more temperate tone is shown in the following, from _A Curious
Treatise of the Nature and Quality of Chocolate_, by Antonio Colmenero
de Ledesma, a Spaniard, Physician and Chyrurgion of the city of Ecija,
in Andaluzia (printed at the Green Dragon, 1685):
So great is the number of those persons, who at present do
drink of Chocolate, that not only in the West Indies, whence
this drink has its original and beginning, but also in
Spain, Italy, Flanders, &c., it is very much used, and
especially in the Court of the King of Spain; where the great
ladies drink it in a morning before they rise out of their
beds, and lately much used in England, as Diet and Phisick
with the Gentry. Yet there are several persons that stand in
doubt both of the hurt and of the benefit, which proceeds
from the use thereof; some saying, that it obstructs and
causes opilations, others and those the most part, that it
fattens, several assure us that it fortifies the stomach:
some again that it heats and inflames the body. But very many
steadfastly affirm, that tho' they shou'd drink it at all
hours, and that even in the Dog-days, they find themselves
very well after it.
So much for the old valuations; let us now attempt by modern methods to
estimate the food value of cacao and its preparations.
_Food Value of Cacao Beans._
In estimating the worth of a food, it is usual to compare the fuel
values. This peculiar method is adopted because the most important
requirement in nutrition is that of giving energy for the work of the
body, and a food may be thought of as being burnt up (oxidised) in the
human machine in the production of heat and energy. The various food
constituents serve in varying degrees as fuel to produce energy, and
hence to judge of the food value it is necessary to know the chemical
composition. Below we give the average composition of cacao beans and
the fuel value calculated from these figures:
AVERAGE COMPOSITION AND FUEL VALUE OF FRESHLY ROASTED CACAO BEANS
(NIBS).
_Composition._ _Energy-giving power_
_Calories per lb._
Cacao Butter 54.0 = 2,282
Protein (total nitrogen 2.3%) 11.9 = 221
Cacao Starch 6.7 } = 472
Other Digestible Carbohydrates, etc. 18.7 }
Stimulants { Theobromine 1.0
{ Caffein 0.4
Mineral Matter 3.2
Crude Fibre 2.6
Moisture 1.5
------ -----
100.0 2,975
------ -----
[Illustration: COCOA AND CHOCOLATE DESPATCH DECK AT BOURNVILLE.]
It will be seen from the above analysis that the cacao bean is rich in
fats, carbohydrates and protein, and that it contains small quantities
of the two stimulants, theobromine and caffein. In the whole range of
animal and vegetable foodstuffs there are only one or two which exceed
it in energy-giving power. If expressed in quite another way, namely, as
"food units," the value of the cacao bean stands equally high, as is
shown by the following figures taken from Smetham's result published in
the Journal of the Royal Agricultural Society, 1914:
"FOOD UNITS."
Turnips 8
Carrots 12
Potatoes 26
Rice 102
Corn Flour 104
Wheat 106
Peas 113
Oatmeal 117
Coconut 159
Cacao Bean 183
These figures indicate the high food value of the raw material; we will
now proceed to consider the various products which are obtained from
it.
_Food Value of Cocoa._
AVERAGE COMPOSITION AND FUEL VALUE OF UNTREATED COCOA.
_Composition._ _Energy-giving power_
_Calories per lb._
Cacao Butter 28.0 = 1,183
Protein 18.3 = 340
Cacao Starch 10.2 } = 718
Other Digestible Carbohydrates, etc. 28.4 }
Stimulants {Theobromine 1.5
{Caffein 0.6
Mineral Matter 5.0
Crude Fibre 4.0
Moisture 4.0
----- -----
100.0 2,241
----- -----
("Soluble" Cocoa, _i.e._, cocoa which has been treated with alkaline
salts, is almost identical in composition, save that the mineral matter
is about 7.5 per cent.).
As cocoa consists of the cacao bean with some of the butter extracted--a
process which increases the percentage of the nitrogenous and
carbohydrate constituents--it will be evident that the food value of
cocoa powder is high, and that it is a concentrated foodstuff. In this
respect it differs from tea and coffee, which have practically no food
value; each of them, however, have special qualities of their own. Some
of the claims made for these beverages are a little remarkable. The
Embassy of the United Provinces in their address to the Emperor of China
(Leyden, 1655), in mentioning the good properties of tea, wrote: "More
especially it disintoxicates those that are fuddl'd, giving them new
forces, and enabling them to go to it again." The Embassy do not state
whether they speak from personal experience, but their admiration for
tea is undoubted. Tea, coffee, and cocoa are amongst our blessings, each
has its devotees, each has its peculiar delight: tea makes for
cheerfulness, coffee makes for wit and wakefulness, and cocoa relieves
the fatigued, and gives a comfortable feeling of satisfaction and
stability. Of these three drinks cocoa alone can be considered as a
food, and just as there are people whose digestion is deranged by tea,
and some who sleep not a wink after drinking coffee, so there are some
who find cocoa too feeding, especially in the summer-time. These
sufferers from biliousness will think it curious that cocoa is
habitually drunk in many hot climates, thus, in Spanish-speaking
countries, it is the custom for the priest, after saying mass, to take a
cup of chocolate. The pure cocoa powder is, as we saw above, a very rich
foodstuff, but it must always be remembered that in a pint of cocoa only
a small quantity, about half an ounce, is usually taken. In this
connection the following comparison between tea, coffee and cocoa is not
without interest. It is taken from the _Farmer's Bulletin_ 249, an
official publication of the United States Department of Agriculture:
COMPARISON OF ENERGY-GIVING POWER OF A PINT OF TEA, COFFEE AND COCOA.
Fuel value
Kind of Beverage Water Protein Fat Carbohydrates per lb.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
% % % % Calories
_Tea_
(0.5 oz. to 1 pt. water) 99.5 0.2 0 0.6 15
_Coffee_
(1 oz. to 1 pt. water) 98.9 0.2 0 0.7 16
_Cocoa_
(0.5 oz. to 1 pt. water) 97.1 0.6 0.9 1.1 65
These figures place cocoa, as a food, head and shoulders above tea and
coffee. The figures are for the beverages made without the addition of
milk and sugar, both of which are almost invariably present. A pint of
cocoa made with one-third milk, half an ounce of cocoa, and one ounce of
sugar would have a fuel value of 320 calories, and is therefore
equivalent in energy-giving power to a quarter of a pound of beef or
four eggs.
Cocoa is stimulating, but its action is not so marked as that of tea or
coffee, and hence it is more suitable for young children. Dr. Hutchison,
an authority on dietetics, writes: "Tea and coffee are also harmful to
the susceptible nervous system of the child, but cocoa, made with plenty
of milk, may be allowed, though it should be regarded, like milk, as a
food rather than a beverage properly so called."
_How to Make a Cup of Cocoa._
Tea, coffee and cocoa are all so easy to make that it is remarkable
anyone should fail to prepare them perfectly. Whilst in France everyone
can prepare coffee to perfection, and many fail in making a cup of tea,
in England all are adepts in the art of tea-making, and many do not
distinguish themselves in the preparation of coffee. Cocoa in either
country is not always the delightful beverage it should be. The
directions below, if carefully followed, will be found to give the
character of cocoa its full expression. The principal conditions to
observe are to avoid iron saucepans, to use boiling water or milk, to
froth the cocoa before serving, and to serve steaming hot in thick cups.
[Illustration]
The amount of cocoa required for two large breakfast cups, that is one
pint, is as much as will go, when piled up, in a dessert spoon. Take
then a heaped dessert-spoonful of pure cocoa and mix dry with one and a
half times its bulk of fine sugar. Set this on one side whilst the
boiling liquid is prepared. Mix one breakfast cup of water with one
breakfast cup of milk, and raise to the boil in an enamelled saucepan.
Whilst this is proceeding, warm the jug which is to hold the cocoa, and
transfer the dry sugar-cocoa mixture to it. Now pour in the boiling
milk and water. Transfer back to saucepan and _boil_ for one minute.
Whisk vigorously for a quarter of a minute. Serve without delay.
_Digestibility of Cocoa._
We have noted above the high percentage of nutrients which cocoa
contains, and the research conducted by J. Forster[1] shows that these
nutrients are easily assimilated. Forster found that the fatty and
mineral constituents of cocoa are both _completely_ digested, and the
nitrogenous constituents are digested in the same proportion as in
finest bread, and more completely than in bread of average quality. One
very striking fact was revealed by his researches, namely, that the
consumption of cocoa increases the digestive power for other foods which
are taken at the same time, and that this increase is particularly
evident with milk. Dr. R.O. Neumann[2] (who fed himself with cocoa
preparations for over twelve weeks), whilst not agreeing with this
conclusion, states that: "The consumption of cocoa from the point of
view of health leaves nothing to be desired. The taking of large or
small quantities of cocoa, either rich or poor in fat, with or without
other food, gave rise to no digestive troubles during the 86 days which
formed the duration of the experiments." He considers that cocoas
containing a high percentage of cacao butter are preferable to those
which contain low percentages, and that a 30 per cent. butter content
meets all requirements. It is worthy of note that 28 to 30 per cent. is
the quantity of butter found in ordinary high-class cocoas.
[1] _Hygienische Rundschau_, 1900, p. 305.
[2] _Die Bewertung des Kakaos als Nahrungs- und Genussmittel_,
1906.
As experts are liable to disagree, and it is almost possible to prove
anything by a judicious selection from their writings, it may be well to
give an extract from some modern text book as more nearly expressing the
standard opinion of the times. In _Second Stage Hygiene_, by Mr. Ikin
and Dr. Lyster, a text book written for the Board of Education Syllabus,
we read, p. 96: "... in the better cocoas the greater part of the fat is
removed by heat and pressure. In this form cocoa may be looked upon as
almost an ideal food, as it contains proteids, fats, and carbohydrates
in roughly the right proportions. Prepared with milk and sugar it forms
a highly nutritious and valuable stimulating beverage."
_Stimulating Property of Cocoa._
The mild stimulating property which cocoa possesses is due to the
presence of the two substances, theobromine and caffein. The presence of
theobromine is peculiar to cocoa, but caffein is a stimulating principle
which also occurs in tea and coffee. Whilst in the quantities in which
they are present in cocoa (about 1.5 per cent. of theobromine and 0.6
per cent. of caffein) they act only as agreeable stimulants, in the pure
condition, as white crystalline powders, they are powerful curative
agents. Caffein is well known as a specific for nervous headaches, and
as a heart stimulant and diuretic. Theobromine is similar in action, but
has the advantage for certain cases, that it has much less effect on the
central nervous system, and for this reason it is a very valuable
medicine for sufferers from heart dropsy, and as a tonic for senile
heart. That its medicinal properties are appreciated is shown by its
price: during 1918 the retail price was about 8 shillings an ounce, from
which we can calculate that every pound of cocoa contained nearly two
shillingsworth of theobromine.
_"Soluble" Cocoa._
Whilst Forster states that treated cocoa is the most digestible, experts
are not in agreement as to which is the more valuable foodstuff, the
pure untouched cocoa, or that which is treated during its manufacture
with alkaline salts. The cocoa so treated is generally described as
"soluble," although its only claim to this name is that the mineral
salts in the cocoa are rendered more soluble by the treatment. It is
also sometimes incorrectly described as containing alkali, but actually
no alkali is present in the cocoa either in a free state or as
carbonate; the potassium exists "in the form of phosphates or
combinations of organic acids, that is to say, in the ideal form in
which these bodies occur in foods of animal and vegetable origin"
(Fritsch, _Fabrication du Chocolat_, p. 216).
[Illustration: BOXING CHOCOLATES.]
_Food Value of Chocolate._
I ate a little chocolate from my supply, well knowing the
miraculous sustaining powers of the simple little block (from
_Mr. Isaacs_, by F. Marion Crawford).
Whilst the food value of cocoa powder is very high the drink prepared
from it can only be regarded as an accessory food, because it is usual
to take the powder in small quantities--just as with beef-tea it is
usual to take only a small portion of an ox in a tea-cup--but chocolate
is often eaten in considerable quantities at a time, and must therefore
be regarded as an important foodstuff, and not considered, as it
frequently is considered, simply as a luxury.
The eating of cacao mixed with sugar dates from very early days, but it
is only in recent times that it has become the principal sweetmeat. What
would a "sweetshop" be to-day without chocolate, that summit of the
confectioner's art, when the rich brown of chocolate is the predominant
note in every confectioner's window? What would the lovers in England do
without chocolates, which enable them to indulge their delight in giving
that which is sure to be well received?
As a luxury it is universally appreciated, and because of this
appreciation its value as a food is sometimes overlooked.
During the war chocolate was valued as a compact foodstuff, which is
easily preserved. Dr. Gastineau Earle, lecturing for the Institute of
Hygiene in 1915 on "Food Factor in War," said: "Chocolate is a most
valuable concentrated food, especially when other foods are not
available; it is the chief constituent of the emergency ration." Its
importance as a concentrated foodstuff was appreciated in the United
States, for every "comfort kit" made up for the American soldiers
fighting in the war contained a cake of sweet chocolate.
There are a number of records of people whose lives have been preserved
by means of chocolate. One of the most recent was the case of Commander
Stewart, who was torpedoed in H.M.S. "Cornwallis" in the Mediterranean
in 1917. He happened to have in his cabin one of the boxes of chocolate
presented to the Army and Navy in 1915 by the colonies of Trinidad,
Grenada, and St. Lucia, who gave the cacao and paid English
manufacturers to make it into chocolate. He had been treasuring the box
as a souvenir, but being the only article of food available, he filled
his pockets with the chocolate, which sustained him through many trying
hours.[3]
[3] See _West India Committee Journal_, p. 55, 1917.
We have already seen the high food value of the cacao bean: what of the
sugar which chocolate contains? Sugar is consumed in large quantities in
England, the consumption per head amounting to 80-90 lbs. per year. It
is well known as a giver of heat and energy, and Sir Ernest Shackleton
reports that it proved a great life preserver and sustainer in Arctic
regions. Our practical acquaintance with sugar commences at birth--milk
containing about 5 per cent. of milk sugar--and when one considers the
amazing activity of young children one understands their continuous
demand for sugar. Dr. Hutchison, in his well-known _Food and the
Principles of Dietetics_, says: "The craving for sweets which children
show is, no doubt, the natural expression of a physiological need, but
they should be taken with, and not between, meals. Chocolate is one of
the most wholesome and nutritious forms of such sweets."
Both the constituents of chocolate being nourishing, it follows that
chocolate itself has a high food value. This is proved by the figures
given below.
As with cocoa, we have first to know the composition before we can
calculate the food value. The relative proportions of nib, butter and
sugar, vary considerably in ordinary chocolate, so that it is difficult
to give an average composition: there are sticks of eating chocolate
which contain as little as 24 per cent. of cacao butter, whilst
chocolate used for covering contains about 36 per cent. of butter.
As modern high-class eating chocolate contains about 31 per cent. of
butter, we will take this for purposes of calculation:
AVERAGE COMPOSITION AND FUEL VALUE OF ENGLISH EATING CHOCOLATE.
_Composition_ _Energy-giving power_
_Calories per lb._
Cacao Butter 31.4 = 1,327
Protein (total nitrogen 0.78%) 4.1 = 76
Cacao Starch 2.3 } = 162
Other Digestible Carbohydrates, etc. 6.4 }
Stimulants { Theobromine 0.3
{ Caffein 0.1
Mineral Matter 1.2
Crude Fibre 0.9
Moisture 1.0
Sugar 52.3 = 973
----- -----
100.0 2,538
In Snyder's _Human Foods_ (1916) the official analyses of 163 common
foods are given. They include practically everything that human beings
eat, and only three are greater than chocolate in energy-giving power.
The result (2,538 calories per lb.) which we obtain by calculation is
lower than the figure (2,768 calories per lb.) for chocolate given by
Sherman in his book on _Food and Nutrition_ (1918). Probably his figure
is for unsweetened chocolate. The table below shows the energy-giving
value of cocoa and chocolate compared with well-known foodstuffs. The
figures (save for "eating" chocolate) are taken from Sherman's book, and
are calculated from the analyses given in Bulletin 28 of the United
States Department of Agriculture:
FUEL VALUE OF FOODSTUFFS.
_Foodstuff as _Calories
Purchased._ per lb._
Cabbage 121
Cod Fish 209
Apples 214
Potatoes 302
Milk 314
Eggs 594
Beef Steak 960
Bread (average white) 1,180
Oatmeal 1,811
Sugar 1,815
Cocoa 2,258
Eating Chocolate 2,538
[Illustration: PACKING CHOCOLATES AT BOURNVILLE.]
_Food Value of Milk Chocolate._
The value of milk as a food is so generally recognised as to need no
commendation here. When milk is evaporated to a dry solid, about 87.5
per cent. of water is driven off, so that the dry milk left has about
eight times the food value of the original milk. Milk chocolate of good
quality contains from 15 to 25 per cent. of milk solids. Milk chocolate
varies greatly in composition, but for the purpose of calculating the
food value, we may assume that about a quarter of a high-class milk
chocolate consists of solid milk, and this is combined with about 40 per
cent. of cane sugar and 35 per cent. of cacao butter and cacao mass.
ANALYSIS AND FUEL VALUE OF MILK CHOCOLATE.
_Energy-giving
power._
_Calories per lb._
Milk Fat and Cacao Butter 35.0 = 1,480
Milk and Cocoa Proteins 8.0 = 149
Cacao Starch and Digestible Carbohydrates 3.0 = 56
Stimulants (Theobromine and Caffein) 0.2
Mineral Matter 2.0
Crude Fibre 0.3
Moisture 1.5
Milk Sugar and Cane Sugar 50.0 = 930
----- -----
100.0 = 2,615
----- -----
It will be noted that the food value of milk chocolate is even greater
than that of plain chocolate. It is highly probable that milk chocolate
is the most nutritious of all sweetmeats. It is not generally recognised
that when we purchase one pound of high-class milk chocolate we obtain
three-quarters of a pound of chocolate and two pounds of milk!
CHAPTER IX
ADULTERATION AND THE NEED FOR DEFINITIONS
Those that mix maize in the Chocolate do very ill, for they
beget bilious and melancholy humours.
_A Curious Treatise on the Nature and Quality of Chocolate_,
Antonio Colmenero de Ledesma, 1685.
COCOA.
Cocoa might conveniently be defined as consisting exclusively of
shelled, roasted, finely-ground cacao beans, partially de-fatted, with
or without a minute quantity of flavouring material.
The gross adulteration of cocoa is now a thing of the past, and most of
the cocoa sold conforms with this definition. Statements, however, get
copied from book to book, and hence we continue to read that cocoa
usually contains arrowroot or other starch. In the old days this was
frequently so, but now, owing to many legal actions by Public Health
Authorities, this abuse has been stamped out. Nowadays if a Public
Analyst finds flour or arrowroot in a sample bought as cocoa, he
describes it as adulterated, and the seller is prosecuted and fined.
Hence, save for the presence of cacao shell, the cocoa of the present
day is a pure article consisting simply of roasted, finely-ground cacao
beans partially de-fatted. The principal factors affecting the quality
of the finished cocoa are the difference in the kind of cacao bean used,
the amount of cacao butter extracted, the care in preparation, and the
amount of cacao shell left in.
The presence of more than a small percentage of shell in cocoa is a
disadvantage both on the ground of taste and of food value. This has
been recognised from the earliest times (see quotations on p. 128). In
the Cocoa Powder Order of 1918, the amount of shell which a cocoa powder
might contain was defined--_grade A_ not to contain more than two per
cent. of shell, and _grade B_ not more than five per cent. of shell. The
manufacturers of high-class cocoa welcomed these standards, but
unfortunately the known analytical methods are not delicate enough to
estimate accurately such small quantities, so that any external check is
difficult, and the purchaser has to trust to the honesty of the
manufacturer. Hence it is wise to purchase cocoa only from makers of
good repute.
CHOCOLATE.
We have so far no legal definition of chocolate in England. As Mr. N.P.
Booth pointed out at the Seventh International Congress of Applied
Chemistry: "At the present time a mixture of cocoa with sugar and starch
cannot be sold as pure cocoa, but only as 'chocolate powder,' and with a
definite declaration that the article is a mixture of cocoa and other
ingredients. Prosecutions are constantly occurring where mixtures of
foreign starch and sugar with cocoa have been sold as 'cocoa,' and it
seems, therefore, a proper step to take to require that a similar
declaration shall be made in the case of 'chocolate' which contains
other constituents than the products of cocoa nib and sugar." We cannot
do better than quote in full the definitions suggested in Mr. Booth's
paper.
The author refers to the absence of any legal standard for chocolate in
England, although in some of the European countries standards are in
force, and points out, as a result of this, that articles of which the
sale would be prohibited in some other countries, are permitted to come
without restriction on to the English market.
[Illustration: WHARF AT FACTORY AT KNIGHTON, AT WHICH MILK IS EVAPORATED
FOR MILK CHOCOLATE MANUFACTURE.
(Messrs. Cadbury Bros., Ltd.)]
He suggests that the following definitions for chocolate goods are
reasonable, and could be conformed to by makers of the genuine article.
These standards are not more stringent than those already enforced in
some of the Colonies and European countries:
(1) Unsweetened chocolate or _cacao mass_ must be prepared
exclusively from roasted, shelled, finely-ground cacao beans,
with or without the addition of a small quantity of
flavouring matter, and should not contain less than 45 per
cent. of cacao butter.
(2) Sweetened chocolate or _chocolate_.--A preparation
consisting exclusively of the products of roasted, shelled,
finely-ground cacao beans, and not more than 65 per cent. of
sugar, with or without a small quantity of harmless
flavouring matter.
(3) _Granulated_, or _Ground Chocolate for Drinking_
purposes.--The same definition as for sweetened chocolate
should apply here, except that the proportion of sugar may be
raised to not more than 75 per cent.
(4) _Chocolate-covered Goods._--Various forms of
confectionery covered with chocolate, the composition of the
latter agreeing with the definition of sweetened chocolate.
(5) _Milk Chocolate._--A preparation composed exclusively of
roasted, shelled cacao beans, sugar, and not less than 15 per
cent. of the dry solids of full-cream milk, with or without a
small quantity of harmless flavouring matter.
Mr. Booth further states that starch other than that naturally present
in the cacao bean, and cacao shell in powder form, should be absolutely
excluded from any article which is to be sold under the name of
"chocolate."
CHAPTER X
THE CONSUMPTION OF CACAO
The Kernels that come to us from the Coast of _Caraqua_, are
more oily, and less bitter, than those that come from the
_French_ Islands, and in _France_ and _Spain_ they prefer
them to these latter. But in _Germany_ and in the _North_
(_Fides sit penes autorem_) they have a quite opposite Taste.
Several People mix that of _Caraqua_ with that of the
Islands, half in half, and pretend by this Mixture to make
the Chocolate better. I believe in the bottom, the difference
of Chocolates is not considerable, since they are only
obliged to increase or diminish the Proportion of Sugar,
according as the Bitterness of the Kernels require it.
_The Natural History of Chocolate_, R. Brookes, 1730.
The war has caused such a disturbance that the statistics for the years
of the war are difficult to obtain. For many years the German
publication, the _Gordian_, was the most reliable source of cacao
statistics, and so far we have nothing in England sufficiently
comprehensive to replace it, although useful figures can be obtained
from the Board of Trade returns of imports into Great Britain, from Mr.
Theo. Vasmer's reports which appear from time to time in _The
Confectioners' Union_ and elsewhere, from Mr. Hamel Smith's collated
material in _Tropical Life_, and from the reports of important brokers
like Messrs. Woodhouse. In 1919 the _Bulletin of the Imperial Institute_
gave a very complete _résumé_ of cacao production as far as the British
Empire is concerned.
_Great Britain._
Since 1830 the consumption of cacao in the British Isles has shown a
great and continuous increase, and there is every reason to believe that
the consumption will easily keep pace with the rapidly growing
production. One effect of the war has been to increase the consumption
of cocoa and chocolate. Many thousands of men who took no interest in
"sweets" learned from the use of their emergency ration that chocolate
was a very convenient and concentrated foodstuff.
CACAO BEANS CLEARED FOR HOME CONSUMPTION.
Year. English Tons.
1830 450
1840 900
1850 1,400
1860 1,450
1870 3,100
1880 4,700
1890 9,000
1900 16,900
1910 24,550
CACAO BEANS IMPORTED INTO UNITED KINGDOM.
_Total _Retained in _Home
Year. Imported_ the country_ Consumption_
tons. tons. tons.
1912 33,600 27,450 24,600
1913 35,000 28,200 23,200
1914 41,750 29,600 24,900
1915 81,800 54,400 40,300
1916 88,800 64,750 29,300
1917 57,900 53,100 41,300
The above figures are compiled from the _Bulletin of the Imperial
Institute_ (No. 1, 1919). The total imports for 1918 were 42,390 tons.
This sudden and marked drop in the amount imported was due to shortage
of shipping. There were, however, large quantities of cacao in stock,
and the amount consumed showed a marked advance on previous years, being
61,252 tons.
The Board of Trade Returns for 1919 are as follow:
CACAO BEANS IMPORTED INTO UNITED KINGDOM.
_From_
British West Africa 72,886 tons
British West Indies 13,219 tons
Ecuador 9,153 tons
Brazil 3,665 tons
Ceylon 903 tons
Other Countries 13,820 tons
------------
Total 113,646 tons
------------
Home Consumption 64,613 tons
It will be noted that the import of British cacao is over 75 per cent.
of the total.
Before the war about half the cacao imported into the United Kingdom was
grown in British possessions. During the war more and more British cacao
was imported, and now that a preferential duty of seven shillings per
hundredweight has been given to British Colonial growths we shall
probably see a still higher percentage of British cacao consumed in the
United Kingdom.
VALUE OF CACAO BEANS IMPORTED INTO THE UNITED KINGDOM (TO NEAREST
£1,000).
Total value of Cacao From British Possessions.
Year. Beans Imported. _Value._ _Per cent._
1913 £2,199,000 £1,158,000 52.7
1914 £2,439,000 £1,204,000 49.4
1915 £5,747,000 £3,546,000 61.7
1916 £6,498,000 £4,417,000 68.0
1917 £3,498,000 £3,010,000 86.0
1918 £3,040,000 £2,549,000 83.8
1919 £9,207,000 £6,639,000 72.1
That the consumption of cacao is expected to grow greater yet in the
immediate future is reflected in the prices of raw cacao, which, as soon
as they were no longer fixed by the Government, rose rapidly, thus Accra
cacao rose from 65s. per hundredweight to over 90s. per hundredweight in
a few weeks, and now (January, 1920) stands at 104s. (See diagram p.
113).
_World Consumption._
The world's consumption of cacao is steadily rising. Before the war the
United States, Germany, Holland, Great Britain, France, and Switzerland
were the principal consumers. Whilst we have increased our consumption,
so that Great Britain now occupies second place, the United States has
outstripped all the other countries, having doubled its consumption in a
few years, and is now taking almost as much as all the rest of the world
put together. It is thought that since America has "gone dry" this
remarkably large consumption is likely to be maintained.
WORLD'S CONSUMPTION OF CACAO BEANS.
(to the nearest thousand tons)
1 ton = 1000 kilograms.
_Pre-war_ _War Period_ _Post-war_
Average of
1913. 1914, 5, 6,& 7. 1918. 1919.
Country. Tons. Tons. Tons. Tons.
U.S.A. 68,000 103,000 145,000 145,000
Germany 51,000 28,000 ? 13,000
Holland 30,000 25,000 2,000 39,000
Great Britain 28,000 41,000 62,000 66,000
France 28,000 35,000 39,000 46,000
Switzerland 10,000 14,000 18,000 21,000
Austria 7,000 2,000 ? 2,000
Belgium 6,000 1,000 1,000 8,000
Spain 6,000 7,000 6,000 8,000
Russia 5,000 4,000 ? ?
Canada 3,000 4,000 9,000 ?
Italy 2,000 5,000 6,000 6,000
Denmark 2,000 2,000 2,000 ?
Sweden 1,000 2,000 2,000 ?
Norway 1,000 2,000 2,000 ?
Other countries
(estimated) 5,000 8,000 11,000 26,000
--------------------------------------------
Total 252,000 283,000 305,000 380,000
The above figures are compiled chiefly from Mr. Theo. Vasmer's reports.
The _Gordian_ estimates that the world's consumption in 1918 was
314,882 tons. In several of our larger colonies and in at least one
European country there is obviously ample room for increase in the
consumption. When one considers the great population of Russia, four to
five thousand tons per annum is a very small amount to consume. It is
pleasant to think of cocoa being drunk in the icebound North of
Russia--it brings to mind so picturesque a contrast: cacao, grown
amongst the richly-coloured flora of the tropics, consumed in a land
that is white with cold. When Russia has reached a more stable condition
we shall doubtless see a rapid expansion in the cacao consumption.
[Illustration: CACAO PODS, LEAVES AND FLOWERS.
Reproduced by permission of Messrs. Fry & Sons, Ltd., Bristol.]
BIBLIOGRAPHY
BOOKS ON COCOA AND CHOCOLATE ARRANGED IN ORDER OF DATE OF PUBLICATION.
1600-1700
RAUCH, Joan. Franc.
DISPUTATIO MEDICO DIOETETICA DE AËRE ET ESCULENTIS, DE
NECNON POTU. Vienna 1624
[Condemns cocoa as a violent inflamer of the passions.]
COLMENERO, Antonio de Ledesma.
[Treatise on Chocolate in Spanish entitled:]
CURIOSO TRATADO DE LA NATURALEZA Y CALIDAD DEL CHOCOLATE,
DIVIDIDO EN QUATRO PUNTOS. Madrid 1631
Translated into English by Don Diego de Vades-forte 1640
Translated into French by René Moreau 1643
Translated into Latin by J.G. Volckamer 1644
Translated into English by J. Wadsworth 1652
Translated into Italian by A. Vitrioli 1667
Moreau's translation edited by Sylvestre Dufour 1671 and 1685
and translated into English by J. Chamberlaine 1685
[for titles, etc., see under translators]
DE VADES-FORTE, Don Diego.
[The magnificent pseudonym of J. Wadsworth.]
(Translated by.)
A CURIOUS TREATISE OF THE NATURE AND QUALITY OF CHOCOLATE
by Antonio de Ledesma Colmenero. London 1640
MOREAU, René. (Translated by.)
DU CHOCOLAT DISCOURS CURIEUX
by Antonio de Ledesma Colmenero. pp. 59. Paris 1643
[VOLCKAMER, J.G. Translated by.]
CHOCOLATA INDA, OPUSCULUM DE QUALITATE ET NATURA CHOCOLATAE
by Antonio de Ledesma Colmenero. pp. 73. Norimbergae 1644
(In same volume with this is "Opobalsamum Orientalae" and
"Pisonis Observationes Medicae." Total pp. 224.)
WADSWORTH, J. (Translated by.)
CHOCOLATE: OR AN INDIAN DRINKE ETC.
by Antonio Ledesma Colmenero. London 1652
STUBBE(S), Henry.
THE INDIAN NECTAR OR A DISCOURSE CONCERNING CHOCOLATA.
pp. 184. London 1662
BRANCATIUS, Franciscus Maria.
DE CHOCALATIS POTU DIATRIBE. pp. 36. Rome 1664
PAULLI, Simon.
COMMENTARIUS DE ABUSU TABACI THEE. Argentorati (see 1746) 1665
VITRIOLI, A. (Translated by.)
DELLA CIOCCOLATA DISCORSO.
[From Moreau's translation of Colmenero's book.] Rome 1667
SEBASTUS MELISSENUS, F. Nicephorus.
DE CHOCOLATIS POTIONE RESOLUTIO MORALIS. pp. 36. Naples 1671
SYLVESTRE DUFOUR, P. [Edited by.]
DE L'USAGE DU CAPHÉ, DU THÉ, ET DU CHOCOLAT. pp. 188. Lyon 1671
[The part on chocolate, pp. 59, is a revision of Moreau's
translation of Colmenero's book, plus B. Marradon's dialogue
on chocolate.]
Translated into English by J. Chamberlaine (which see). 1685
HUGHES, William.
THE AMERICAN PHYSITIAN ... WHEREUNTO IS ADDED A DISCOURSE ON
THE CACAO-NUT-TREE, AND THE USE OF ITS FRUIT, WITH ALL THE
WAYS OF MAKING CHOCOLATE. London 1672
AUTHOR NOT GIVEN.
DESCRIPTION AND MANAGEMENT OF THE COCOA TREE.
Phil. Trans. Abr. II. pp. 59. 1673
BONTEKOE, Willem.
Sundry short treatises in Dutch on Cocoa and Chocolate. about 1679
AUTHOR NOT GIVEN.
THE NATURAL HISTORY OF COFFEE, TEA, CHOCOLATE, TOBACCO AND
ALSO THE WAY OF MAKING MUM.
pp. 39. Printed for Christopher Wilkinson. London 1682
[Condemns chocolate on account of its containing "such a
corrosive salt" as sugar. Mum is a peculiar kind of beer
made from wheat malt.]
MUNDY, Henry.
OPERA OMNIA MEDICO-PHYSICA DE AËRE VITALI, ESCULENTIS ET
POTULENTIS CUM APPENDICE DE PARERGIS IN VICTU ET CHOCOLATU,
THEA, CAFFEA, TOBACCO. Oxford 1680. Leyden 1685
SYLVESTRE DUFOUR, P.
TRAITEZ NOUVEAUX ET CURIEUX DU CAFÉ, DU THÉ ET DU CHOCOLAT.
[The treatise on chocolate is compiled from the Spanish of
Colmenero and B. Marradon.] pp. 403. à la Haye 1685
(With additions by St. Disdier) pp. 404. à la Haye 1693
Published by Deville. pp. 404. Lyon 1688
The above in Latin (by J. Spon),
"TRACTATUS NOVI DE POTU CAPHE, DE CHIENSIUM, THE, ET DE
CHOCOLATA." pp. 202. Paris 1685
A further Latin translation of the above,
"NOVI TRACTATUS DE POTU CAPHE, DE CHIENSIUM, THE, ET DE
CHOCOLATA." pp. 188. Geneva 1699
CHAMBERLAINE, J. (Translated by.)
THE MANNER OF MAKING COFFEE, TEA AND CHOCOLATE. pp. 116. London 1685
[A translation of Sylvestre Dufour's compilation, the part
on Chocolate entitled "A Curious Treatise of the Nature and
Quality of Chocolate," being a translation of Colmenero's book.]
BLEGNY, Nicholas de.
LE BON USAGE DE THÉ, DU CAFFÉ, ET DU CHOCOLAT POUR LA
PRESERVATION ET POUR LA GUERISON DES MALADES.
pp. 358. Paris 1687
pp. 358. Lyon 1687
MAPPUS, Marcus.
DISSERTATIONES MEDICAE TRES DE RECEPTIS HODIE ETIAM IN
EUROPA, POTUS CALIDI GENERIBUS THÉE, CAFÉ, CHOCOLATA.
pp. 66. Argentorati 1695
1701-1800
DUNCAN, Dr.
WHOLESOME ADVICE AGAINST THE ABUSE OF HOT LIQUORS,
PARTICULARLY OF COFFEE, TEA, CHOCOLATE, ETC. pp. 280. London 1706
AUTHOR NOT GIVEN [by De Chélus.]
HISTOIRE NATURELLE DU CACAO ET DU SUCRE.
pp. 227. Paris 1719
pp. 228. Amsterdam 1720
pp. 404. Amsterdam 1720
pp. 95. London 1724
BROOKES, R. [the above by De Chélus.] (Translated by.)
NATURAL HISTORY OF CHOCOLATE.
pp. 95. Printed for J. Roberts, London 1724
pp. 95. Printed for Browne, London 1725
pp. 95. Printed for J. Roberts, London 1730
ACT OF PARLIAMENT, George II, 1723.
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RELATIO DE CACAO. Brunswick 1738
BARON, H.T.
AN SENIBUS CHOCOLATAE PUTUS? Paris 1739
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A TREATISE ON TOBACCO, TEA, COFFEE AND CHOCOLATE.
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MEMORIE STORICHE SOPRA L'USO DELLA CIOCCOLATA IN TEMPO DI
DIGIUNO ETC.
Historical memoir on the use of chocolate upon fast days.
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THE CHOCOLATE MAKERS OR MIMICKRY EXPOSED.
An Interlude. Dublin. 1759
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Port of Spain, Trinidad (see 1903) 1897
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COCOA AND CHOCOLATE.
pp. 71. Dorchester, Mass., U.S.A. (see 1886 and 1891) 1899
HART, J.H.
CACAO. pp. 117. Port of Spain, Trinidad (see 1892 and 1911) 1900
JUMELLE, H.
LE CACOYER: SA CULTURE ET SON EXPLOITATION. pp. 211. Paris 1900
MENIER.
HISTORIQUE DES ÉTABLISSEMENTS MENIER.
(Printed for Exposition Universelle.) pp. 44. Paris 1900
MODERN WORKS, 1901-1920.
(_a_) _Cacao Cultivation._
SMITH, H. Hamel.
SOME NOTES ON COCOA PLANTING IN THE WEST INDIES. pp. 70 1901
WILDEMAN, E. de.
LES PLANTES TROPICALES DE GRANDE CULTURE--CAFE, CACAO, ETC.
pp. 304. Bruxelles 1902
PREUSS, Paul.
EXPEDITION NACH CENTRAL UND SÜD-AMERIKA. Berlin.
French translation of part of the above,
"LE CACAO, CULTURE ET PREPARATION"
(from Bulletin Société d'Etudes Coloniales). pp. 249. 1902
EITLING, C.
DER KAKAO, SEINE KULTUR UND BEREITUNG. pp. 39. 1903
OLIVIERI, F.E.
TREATISE ON CACAO. pp. 101. Trinidad (see 1897) 1903
KINDT, L.
DIE KULTUR DES KAKAOBAUMES UND SEINE SCHÄDLINGE.
pp. 157. Hamburg 1904
STEUART, M.E.
EVERYDAY LIFE ON A CEYLON COCOA ESTATE. pp. 256. London 1905
CHALOT, C. and LUC, M.
LE CACOYER AU CONGO FRANCAIS. pp. 58 1906
FAUCHERE, A.
CULTURE PRATIQUE DU CACAOYER ET PREPARATION DU CACAO.
pp. 175. Paris 1906
PRUD'HOMME, E.
LE COCOTIER. CULTURE, INDUSTRIE ET COMMERCE. pp. 491. 1906
DE MENDONCA, Monteiro.
BOA ENTRADA PLANTATIONS, SAN THOMÉ. pp. 63. London 1907
MOUNTMORRES, Viscount.
MAIZE, COCOA, RUBBER. pp. 44. Liverpool 1907
SALDAU, E.
DIE SCHOKOLADEN FABRIKATION. Vienna (see 1881) 1907
WRIGHT, H.
THEOBROMA CACAO OR COCOA. pp. 249. Colombo 1907
RAFAELI, V., and MAXIMILIANO, E.
HOW JOSÉ FORMED HIS CACAO ESTATE. pp. 18. Trinidad 1907
TORAILLE, C.F.
STOLEN FROM THE FIELDS. A TREATISE ON CACAO AND ITS
CULTIVATION. Trinidad 1907
HUGGINS, J.D.
HINTS TO THOSE ENGAGING IN THE CULTIVATION OF COCOA. pp. 24.
Port of Spain, Trinidad 1908
SMITH, H. Hamel.
THE FUTURE OF CACAO PLANTING. pp. 95. London 1908
ATBE.
EL CULTIVO LAS DISERSAS INDUSTRIAS DES COCO. pp. 42. Quito 1909
HART, J.H.
CACAO. pp. 307. Duckworth, London (see 1892 and 1900) 1911
SMITH, H. Hamel.
NOTES ON SOIL AND PLANT SANITATION ON CACAO AND RUBBER
ESTATES. pp. 603. Bale, London 1911
CARVATHO, d'Almeida.
A ILHA DE S. THOME E A AGRICULTURA PROGRESSIVA.
(Includes Culturas de Cacoeiro.) pp. 228. Lisbon 1912
JOHNSON, W.H.
COCOA: ITS CULTIVATION AND PREPARATION. pp. 186.
(Imperial Institute.) London 1912
AUTHOR NOT GIVEN.
CACAO CULTURE IN THE WEST INDIES.
pp. 75. Havana. (Published by German Alkali Works, Cuba.) 1912
HENRY, Yves.
LE CACAO. pp. 103. Paris 1913
SMITH, H. Hamel.
THE FERMENTATION OF CACAO. pp. 318. Bale, London 1913
MALINS-SMITH, W.M.
PRACTICAL CACAO PLANTING IN GRENADA.
(_West India Committee Circular_, April to December.) 1913
HALL, C.J.J. van.
COCOA. pp. 512. Macmillan, London 1914
KNAPP, A.W.
THE PRACTICE OF CACAO FERMENTATION. pp. 24. Bale, London 1914
(_b_) _Chocolate Manufacture._
BESSELICH, N.
DIE SCHOKOLADE. pp. 74. Trier.
ZIPPERER, P.
MANUFACTURE OF CHOCOLATE. pp. 277.
Berlin, London and New York (see 1889 and 1913) 1902
DUVAL, E.
CONFISERIE MODERNE. 1908
BOOTH, N.P., CRIBB, C.H., and ELLIS-RICHARDS, P.A.
THE COMPOSITION AND ANALYSIS OF CHOCOLATE.
Reprinted from the _Analyst_. pp. 15. London 1909
FRITSCH, F.
FABRICATION DU CHOCOLAT. pp. 349. Paris 1910
FRANCOIS, L.
LES ALIMENTS SUCRES INDUSTRIELS
(Chocolats, Bonbons, etc.) pp. 143. Paris 1912
WHYMPER, R.
COCOA AND CHOCOLATE: THEIR CHEMISTRY AND MANUFACTURE.
pp. 327. Churchill, London 1912
ZIPPERER, P.
DIE SCHOKOLADEN-FABRIKATION.
pp. 349. Berlin (see also 1889 and 1902) 1913
JACOUTOT, Auguste.
CHOCOLATE AND CONFECTIONERY MANUFACTURE.
pp. xv, 211. J. Baker & Sons. London
(_c_) _General._
WINTON, A.L., SILVERMAN, M., and BAILEY, E.M.
[ANALYSES OF CACAO AND COCOA.]
Report Connecticut Agri. Expt. Station, U.S.A. pp. 40. 1902
HEAD, Brandon.
THE FOOD OF THE GODS. pp. 109. London 1903
STOLLWERCK, W.
DER KAKAO UND DIE SCHOKOLADEN INDUSTRIE. pp. 102. Jena 1907
U.S. CONSULAR REPORT NO. 50
(Dept. of Commerce and Labour.)
COCOA PRODUCTION AND TRADE. pp. 51. Washington 1912
CASTILLO, Ledon.
EL CHOCOLATE. pp. vi, 30. Mexico 1917
BULLETIN IMPERIAL INSTITUTE.
COCOA PRODUCTION IN THE BRITISH EMPIRE. pp. 40-95. London 1919
KNAPP, A.W., and McLELLAN, B.G.
THE ESTIMATION OF CACAO SHELL
(reprint from _Analyst_). pp. 21. London 1919
* * * * *
The bibliography above is made as complete as possible as far as bound
books in English are concerned. It also gives the more important
continental publications. Should any errors or omissions have been made
here or elsewhere, the author will be grateful if readers will point
them out.
PERIODICALS.
Only one or two of the important papers in current literature are
mentioned. Much valuable material is to be found in the following:
CACAO PRODUCTION
The papers published by the various departments of agriculture
(especially those of Trinidad, Grenada, Philippines, Java, Ceylon, Gold
Coast, Kew, etc.), the _Bulletin of the Imperial Institute_, _The West
India Committee Circular_, _Tropical Life_, _West Africa_, _Der
Tropenpflanzer_, etc.
STATISTICS
_The Gordian_, _Tea and Coffee Trade Journal_.
MANUFACTURE
_The Confectioners' Union_.
CHEMISTRY
_The Analyst_, the _Journal of the Society of Chemical Industry_, and
the _Journal of the Chemical Society_.
INDEX
_Asterisks denote illustrations._
ACCRA, 74, 91, 114, 185 (_see also_ Gold Coast)
Acids produced by fermentation, 57
Adulterants, 163
Adulteration, cocoa, 179 chocolate, 180
Agostini cacao picker, 46, *46
Agricultural colleges, 42 education, 90
Alcohol produced by fermentation, 52, 57
Alkaline treating of cocoa, 173
Allen, Grant, 114
Altitude, cacao cultivation, 18
Alligator cacao, 24
Analytical composition--cacao bean, 166
cacao butter, 159
cacao shell, 163
chocolate, 176
cocoa, 168
milk chocolate, 178
ARRIBA, 74, 84 (_see also_ Guayaquil)
Aztec, 5, 7, 8
Bacteria--fermentation, 57
Bagging cacao beans, *107, *110
BAHIA, 74, 87, 114
Bainbridge and Davies, 125
Baker & Co., Walter, 121
Beans, 3, 167, *129
breaking machine, 130
breaking of, into fragments, 130
changes--fermentation, 57
characteristics of, 75
size and weight of, 74
use as money, 8
Bibliography, 191
Blending, 133
Booth, N.P., 75, 180
Botanical description, 25
Bournville, 128, 144, 162
Boxing chocolates, *173
BRAZIL, 38, 82, 84, 87, 185
Breaking cacao pods, 50, *51
Brill, H.C., 59
BRITISH GUIANA, 84
BRITISH WEST AFRICA, 185 (_see also_ Gold Coast)
Buying cacao, 109
By-products, 157, 161
Cacao beans, (_see_ beans)
Cacao butter, 135, 157, 159, 166, 168, 171, 176, 178
keeping properties, 158
melting point, 149, 158
pressing out of, 135
Cacao, cultivation, 17, 38, 116
definition, 2
explanation name, 1
introduction into Europe, 10
keeping properties, 122
manufacturers' requirements, 75
picker, 46, *46
preparations, popularity of, 15
shell, (_see_ shell)
_Cacauatl_, 1
Cadbury Bros., 15, 154
Cadbury, Richard, 16
Caffein, 166, 168, 172, 176, 178
Cailler & Co., 154
_Calabacillo_, 23, *27, 76
CAMEROON'S, 74, 82, 91, 105, 114
CARACAS, 74, 87
Carmody, Professor, 38, 41
CARUPANO, 74, 87
Catch crop, 36
CEYLON, 18, 42, 52, 68, 70, 74, 81, 82, 106, 114, 185
Chittenden, Dr., 52
Claying, 70, *71, 76, 88
Clearing the land, *29, 30
Clifford, Sir Hugh, 91
Climate, cacao cultivation, 17
_Criollo_, *27, 34, 52, 59, 87, 107
Chocolate, 176, 180
Chocolate, ancient usage, 10
covering recipe, 150
covering, suggested legal definition, 182
definition, 3
derivation of word, 8
fascination of, 8
houses and clubs, 12
powder, 180
recipe, 140
suggested legal definitions, 181
sustaining value, 174
_Chocolatl_, 7, 8
Chupons, (_see_ suckers)
Cocoa, 168, 169
definition, 2
digestibility of, 171
how to make, 170
origin of word, 3
powder, introduction of, 15
Coconuts, distinction between and cacao, 3
Colouring beans, 72
Colour, cacao bean, 25, 77
cacao butter, 158
cacao flowers, 22
cacao leaves, 22
cacao pods, 24, 48
changes during fermentation, 57, 59, 61
Columbus, 7
Composition, (_see_ analyses)
Compressor, chocolate, 148
Conching, 145
Conche machine, *147, *148
CONGO, 82, 91, 114
Consumption, 15, 184
British Isles, 184
World, 186
Contract labour, Cameroons, 106
San Thomé, 103
Cortes, 7
Covering cremes, *151
CUBA, 82
Dancing, cacao beans, 72
De Candolle, 94
Decauville railways, 52
DEMERARA, 114
Diseases, cacao tree, 43
DOMINICA, 82, 88
Drying, 62, *63, 64, *64, *65, *68, *69, *85, *98, *105
Dryers, artificial, 66, *67
Duty, 13, 185
Duty, cacao beans, 14, 185
cacao butter, 14
cacao shell, 14
Earle, Dr. Gastineau, 174
ECUADOR, 52, 81, 82, 84, 185
Enrobing machine, 152, *152
Enzymes, 59, 61, 66
Exports, cacao butter, 160
beans, 84
Extracting beans from pod, 50
Faber, Dr. von, 22
Faelli, Professor, 164
Fat (_see_ cacao butter)
Fermentation, 52, 56
changes during, 55
control of, 63
good effects of, 60
loss of weight, during, 64
period of, 52
temperature of, 53, 55, 59, 61
Fermenting boxes, *54, *58
FERNANDO PO, 82, 91
Fickendey, Dr., 55, 59, 61
Flavouring chocolate, 146
Flowers, *21, 22, 74
Flowers, percentage fruiting, 74
Food value, cacao bean, 166
chocolate, 173, 176
cocoa, 168
milk chocolate, 178
old opinions, 165
_Forastero_, *27, 34, 53, 59, 77
Forster, J., 171, 172
Freeman, W.G., 34
FRENCH COLONIES, 82
Fritsch, J., 173
Fruit, cacao, 21
Fry, J.S., & Sons, 14, 15, 122, 134
Fry, Joseph, 3, 13
Fungi, 44
Gage, Thomas, 8, 10
Gathering, 45, *47, *49, *85
Geographical distribution, 18
Germ, cacao, 59, *129, 131
screens, *131
separation of, 131
Germination, prevention of, 61
GOLD COAST, 18, 42, 74, 81, 82, 91, 94, 107 (_see also_ Accra) native
industry, 94
Gordon, W.J., 10
Gouveia, Dr., 105
Grafting and budding, 34, 75
GRENADA, 30, 38, 74, 76, 81, 82, 88, 90, 114
Grinding, 120, 134, *143
mill, cocoa, *133, 134, *135
machine, chocolate, 140, *142, *145
Grousseau & Viconge, 163
GUAYAQUIL, 32, 76, 84, 109, 114 (_see also_ Arriba and Machala)
HAITI, 82, 88
Hart, J.H., 34
Height, cacao tree, 20, 36
Historicus, 16
History, cocoa and chocolate, 1
Home of cacao, 5
Husk, (_see_ shell)
Hutchison, Dr., 170, 175
Illipe butter, 159
_Immortel, Bois_, 37
Imports, cacao butter, 160
cacao bean, 185
Incas, 8
Insect Pests, 44
JAMAICA, 82, 88
JAVA, 18, 37, 42, 54, 68, 70, 82, 106, 114
Knapp, A.W., 75, 164
LAGOS, 82, 91
Leaves, cacao, 22, *187
Linnaeus, 1
Linalool, 60, 125
Loew, Dr. O., 55
MACHALA, 74, 84 (_see also_ Guayaquil)
MADAGASCAR, 68, 106
Manufacture, chocolate, 140
cocoa, 134
early methods of, *9, 119, *120, *121, 129
loss on, 14
milk chocolate, *155, *181
Manufacturers' requirements, 75
Manure, 32
cacao shell as, 162
Map, Africa, *92
South America, *89
World, *83
MARACAIBO, 87
Markets, cacao, 107
Mass, 134, 136
Mélangeur, 140, *141, 144
MEXICO, 1, 7, 18
Milk chocolate, 154, 178, 182
suggested legal definition, 182
recipe, 155
Montezuma, 7
Mosses, cacao tree, 22
Moulding chocolate, 146
Mountmorres, Viscount, 40
Mulching, 32
Neumann, Dr. R.O., 171
Nib, 15, 120, 128, *129, 130, 134
Nib, percentage shell, 133
yield of, 15
Nicholls, Dr. L., 55
Nursery, cacao, *33
Odour, cocoa, 77, 146, 161
fermentation, 60
Orellano, 6
Packing chocolates, *177
cocoa, 138
PARA, 74, 87
Perrot, Professor, 60
PERU, 8
Pests (_see_ diseases)
Peter, M.D., 154
Picker, cacao, 46, *46
PHILIPPINES, 42
Plantation, cacao, 27, *104
Planting, 32, *34, 37
Pod, *2, 5, 23, *23, *25, *28, *187
picking of, 46
yield of cacao, 74
Polishing beans, 72, 78
Pollination, cacao flowers, 22
Press cake, 138
cocoa, *136, *137
Pressing cocoa, 136
Preuss, Dr. Paul, 66, 70
Preyer, Dr. Axel, 55
Price, cacao, 86, 96, 112, *113, 185
cacao butter, 160
cacao shell, 164
chocolate, 13
theobromine, 172
PRINCIPE, 100
Production of cacao, Africa, 91
British Possessions, 81, 82, 183
British West Africa, 91
British West Indies, 88
Gold Coast, 94
increasing of, 75
San Thomé and Principe, 100
shell, 161
South America, 84
West Indies, 88
World, *80, 81, 82
Pruning, 40
Pulp, cacao, *24, 25, 52, 55, 60
Rainfall, cacao cultivation, 18
Raleigh, Sir Walter, 6
Refining machine, *142
Research Association, _vi_
Revis and Bolton, 128
Richelieu, Cardinal, 11
Roaster, *126, 128
Roasting, 119, 125
loss on, 127
Rocking tables, 149, *149
Root system, *31
Sack, Dr., 55, 66
Sales of cacao, 111
SAMANA, 91
SAMOA, 82, 106, 114
SANCHEZ, 91
SAN DOMINGO, 82, 88, 91
_Sangre-tora_, 24
SAN THOME, 38, 52, 54, 82, 91, 100, 114
Schulte im Hofe, Dr. A., 55
Seed, selection of, 32
Shade, 36, *37, *38, *39, 90, 102
Shaking table, chocolate, 149, *149
Shell, cacao, *129, 161, 163
butter, 162
coffee substitute, 163
as feeding stuff, 162, 163
in finished cocoa, 180
food units, 163
fuel, 162
manure, 162
removal of, 120, 128
separating machine, 132, *132
tea from, 161
Sherman, H.C., 176
Sieving cocoa, 138
Size, bean, 78
cocoa particles, 138
sugar particles, 144
Smalls, 132
Smetham, A., 163, 167
Smith, H. Hamel, 55
Snyder, Harry, 176
Soil, 30
Soluble cocoa, 168, 172
Sorting beans, *73, *86, 123
Sorting-cleaning machine, 124, *124, *125
Stimulating properties, 60, 172
ST. LUCIA, 82, 88
Storing cacao, 122, *123
ST. VINCENT, 82, 88
Suckers, 40, *41
Surf boats, *108
SURINAM, 30, 52, 82, 84, 114
Sweat boxes, 53, *53
Sweatings, 57, 63
Tannin, 59
Tap root, *31, 32
Taste, fermentation, 59
Temperature, cacao cultivation, 18
covering chocolate, 151
fermentation, 53, 55, 59, 61
germination, 61
chocolate moulding, 149
bean roasting, 128
Tempering machine, 149
_Theobroma cacao_, 1, 26
Theobromine, in bean, 166
chocolate, 176
cocoa, 168, 172
fermentation, 60
milk chocolate, 178
shell, 162
TOGO, 82, 91
Transport of cacao, *56, *93, *95, 96, *97, *99, *100, *101, *102, *103,
*106, 107, *108, *110
Tree, cacao, 19, *19, *20
growth, 40
yield of, 74
TRINIDAD, 18, 30, 34, 37, 41, 42, 52, 68, 70, 72, 74, 75, 76, 81, 82,
88, 103, 114
Van Houten, C.J., 15
Varieties of cacao, 26
Vasmer, Theo., 183, 186
VENEZUELA, 18, 70, 76, 81, 82, 84, 106
Washing cacao beans, 68, *70, 78, 107
Watt, Sir George, 50
Weight, bag of cacao, 109
loss on drying, 64
loss on fermentation, 64
loss on roasting, 128
WEST INDIES, 88
WEST INDIES, BRITISH, 88, 185
Wind-screen trees, 30
Winnowing machine (_see_ shell separating machine)
Whisk, chocolate, *6, *170
Yeasts, fermenting, 57
Yield, cacao pod, 74
cacao tree, 74
per acre, 74, 103
Zipperer, P., 149, 164
THE WESTMINSTER PRESS
HARROW ROAD LONDON
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