Cocoa And Chocolate
The Tree, The Bean The Beverage

62 THE COCOA AND CHOCOLATE INDUSTRY oxidase, so to speak, lubricates the machinery of oxidation. At the end of the fermentation everything inside the skin of the cacao bean, originally white or purple, begins to be tinged with brown. The colour change continues during the drying, and by the time the bean is quite dry, if it was originally white or pink, it is now cinnamon brown, and if it was originally purple, this colour is darkened by the presence of more or less brown. This colour change may be likened to that occurring in sliced apples when they are dried in the sun, with this difference, that the cacao bean is neither skinned nor cut. Notwithstanding this, the oxygen penetrates the bean, which gradually becomes browned throughout. This is one of the things the wise planter strives after, to produce a bean with. a beautiful brown interior. It has been generally noted that accompanying this change in the colour of the bean is a change of taste, the original bitterness, or rather astringency (due to the tannins) being materially reduced. This reduction of astringency is regarded by manufacturers of cocoa and chocolate as an important and advantageous action. It requires an experienced palate to appreciate it. On the other hand, the difference in colour between the fermented and unfermented cacao is obvious to everyone ; thus for example, an unfermented Accra bean when dried is the colour of slate, and when fermented is brownish-purple. Of the various other effects of fermentation, the loosening of the shell, the opening up of the bean and the development of the acid odour deserve mention. The bean would seem to have a taste for the acidulous beverage which the pulp forms during fermentation, for the bean sucks a small fraction of it in and becomes as round as an egg, the skin being stretched to the