28 COCOA AND CHOCOLATE 



Extremes of Characteristics. 



Criollo. 

 (Old Red, Caracas, etc.) 



Forastero. 



Grading from Cundeamor 

 (bottle-necked) to Calabacillo 

 (smooth). 



Pod walls. Thin and warty. 



Beans. Large and plump. 

 White. 

 Sweet. 



Thick and woody. 



Small and flat. 

 Heliotrope to purple. 

 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 classi- 

 fication. 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 hap- 

 pens 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 ? " 



