Cocoa And Chocolate
The Tree, The Bean The Beverage

i /•_ _ COLLECTION, TRANSPORT, AND MARKETING 93 bean, are as so many red lights warning the buyer of imperfect fermentation. The buyer naturally prefers an even cacao to a mixture, and notes such gross imper-fections as germinated beans, mouldy beans and grubby beans. The method of procedure in judging a cacao is usually to glance first at its general external appearance, and make some such examination as is suggested above. The buyer then. cuts a suitable number, say 100 beans, into halves and carefully examines these so as to get a percentage analysis. Their general character is noted and an estimation made of the good, unfermented and defectives. Some buyers are satisfied with this, but the more thorough proceed to roast the bean and test the aroma and other properties of the roasted product. The old proverb says, “ The buyer has need of a hundred eyes.” In the case of cacao he needs also at least one nose, and that a trained one. He pays great attention to the odour and the slightest alien tang, whether described as “ hammy,” mouldy, musty, smoky, or cheesy, is generally sufficient to condemn the sample. As far as the author knows it is exceptional to go further and to take the butter percentage and the shell percentage into account in valuing a particular sample, although a knowledge of the usual composition of the type may influence the buyer. In fixing a price for a cacao one must also consider the demand, and this is definitely determined by the manu-facturers’ recipes. It is obvious that every cacao produces its own peculiar characteristics in the cocoa or chocolate prepared from it, but only the manufacturer knows exactly the qualities he is striving to produce in his finished goods, and what cacao, or blend of cacaos, will give the desired result. His aim is to piease the public, and thus the taste of the public is the ultimate