102 



^CACAO 



drinking cups for the midday meal. Here women sit with 

 trays of the broad banana leaves on which the beans are 

 placed as they extract them from the pod with the wooden 

 spoon.' l 



Sweating or Fermentation. After this the beans are dried 

 on trays in the full heat of a blazing tropical sun. During this 



PICKING CACAO, TRINIDAD 



process their colour changes from red to a dark brown and 

 they become softer. On many estates this drying is now done 

 by machinery. They are then put into bags ready to be 

 exported. 



On arrival at the factory the beans are carefully sorted, 

 and then roasted, after which the broken kernels, or nibs, are 

 extracted. All this is done by machinery. They are next 

 put between horizontal stone rollers which grind them to 

 powder ; but the nibs also contain a large proportion of fatty 



1 Brandon Head, Food of the Gods. 



