MINOR VEGETABLE PRODUCTS AND THEIR SOURCES. 195 
olate is prepared, The fruit when ripening changes from a green tou a 
deep yellow color; when ripe,itis gathered by hand, split open, and 
the seeds removed. The latter are then cleaned of the pulpy matter 
surrounding them, and subjected to a process of fermentation, for the 
purpose of developing their color, and when this process is completed 
they are dried in the sun and packed for transportation. 
The seeds are prepared for use by roasting in revolving metal cylin- 
ders and then bruising them to loosen their skins, which are removed 
by fanning. The cotyledons, commonly called cacao-nibs, are separated 
in the same manner. The cleaned seeds are then crushed and ground 
between heated rollers, which softens the oily matter and reduces them 
to a uniform, pasty mass; this is then mixed with variable quantities of 
sugar and starch, to form the different kinds of cacao, or sweetened and 
flavored with vanilla or other substances for the formation of chocolate. 
The value of cacao as an article of food is very considerable, from the 
large quantity of nutritive matter it contains. In one hundred parts of 
cacao there are fifty-one of fat or butter, twenty-two of starch and gum, 
twenty of gluten, and two of the peculiar principle theobromine, which 
contains more nitrogen than the active principle of either tea or coffee. 
As a refreshing beverage, it is much inferior to either of ‘these well- 
known articles, which are used as an infusion only; but as cacao is 
taken into the stomach as a substance, it 1s an important article of 
nutrition. ; 
Coffee.—This well-known article is the berry of Coffea Arabica, (Ru- 
biacew,) a native of. the extreme southwest point of Abyssinia, from 
which it was introduced into Arabia, which country for two centuries 
supplied the world with all the coffee used. Toward the end of the 
seventeenth ceutury a coffee plant was received at the botanic garden 
of Amsterdam. About the beginning of the eighteenth century a plant 
was introduced into the western hemisphere, either by the French at 
Martinique, or by the Dutch at Surinam, which plant was the parent of 
all the coffee now exported from the West Indies and South America. 
The coffee tree occasionally reaches to a height of twenty feet, with 
a stem three or four inches in thickness, but in cultivation it is kept 
dwarf to facilitate the gathering of the berries, The flowers are pro- 
duced in dense clusters at the bases of the leaves; they are snowy 
white in color, and are succeeded by numerous red, fleshy berries, each 
of which contains two of the seeds known as the coffee-berry. The 
berries are gathered when ripe, and the soft outer pulp is removed by 
a machine called the pulper, after which they are steeped in water to 
remove all mucilaginous matter; they are then carefully dried, and the 
parchment-like covering of the seeds removed by means of a mill, which 
crushes the shells, and allows the separation of the seeds, which are 
then ready for market. 
The roasting of the berry increases its bulk and diminishes its 
_ Weight; its essential qualities are also greatly changed, the heat caus- 
ing the development of the volatile oil and peculiar acid to which the 
aroma and flavor are due. 
Medicinally coffee acts upon the brain as a stimulant, inciting it to 
inereased activity and producing sleeplessness; hence, it is of great value — 
as an antidote to narcotic poisons. It is also supposed to prevent too 
rapid waste in the tissues of the body, and in that way enables it to sup- 
port life upon less food. Thes¢ effects are due to the volatile oil and 
also to the presence of a peculiar erystallizable nitrogenous principle 
termed caffeine. ‘The leaves of the plant likewise contain the same 
