Cocoa And Chocolate
The Tree, The Bean The Beverage

92 THE COCOA AND CHOCOLATE INDUSTRY influence price and which are little affected by the vagaries of fashion or the vicissitudes of taste. In the first place, cacao of the Criollo type which shows, on breaking the bean, a cinnamon-coloured fracture (such as one sees in the better grades from Ceylon, Java, Venezuela, Samoa, and Madagascar) has always been considered the finest cacao. Connoisseurs of chocolate have pointed out with regret that the delicate Criollo type is slowly dying out and giving place to the hardier Forastero, which has a dark-brown or brownish-purple “ break.” It may be well here to clear up a possible misconception. Criollo beans are born, not made. That is to say, they are born white as ivory and become cinnamon brown on proper fermentation and drying. Forastero and Calabacillo beans as they come from the pod are purpie, and on correct fermentation and drying develop a more or less dark-brown colour. No amount of fermentation will ever give a Forastero bean the light-brown break of the Criollo. You cannot make damsons into greengages, but damsons are good to eat for all that. If Criollo is the queen of cacaos, Forastero and Calabacillo are the yeomen, and on their backs the industry rests. Whether the cacao be Criollo or Forastero, the buyer prefers large, plump beans, the shell of which is crisp but not too brittle and more or less loose from the interior. On squeezing a handful of good beans a light crackling is heard, and under firm pressure the bean breaks into small crisp fragments. The colour of the fracture depends on the kind of cacao, but whether the tint is cinnamon-brown, dark-brown or brownish-purple, it should be a pure colour free from any suggestion of mud or slate-grey. A flat bean, a slate-coloured “ break,” the fragments leathery or cheesy in consistence, the shell soft and clinging closely to the