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CHAPTER IX 



ADULTERATION AND THE NEED FOR 

 DEFINITIONS 



Those that mix maize in the Chocolate do very ill, for 

 they beget bilious and melancholy humours. 

 A Curious Treatise on the Nature and Quality of Chocolate, 

 Antonio Colmenero de Ledesma, 1685. 



COCOA. 



COCOA might conveniently be defined as con- 

 sisting exclusively of shelled, roasted, finely- 

 ground cacao beans, partially de-fatted, with 

 or without a minute quantity of flavouring material. 



The gross adulteration of cocoa is now a thing of the 

 past, and most of the cocoa sold conforms with this 

 definition. Statements, however, get copied from book 

 to book, and hence we continue to read that cocoa 

 usually contains arrowroot or other starch. In the old 

 days this was frequently so, but now, owing to many 

 legal actions by Public Health Authorities, this abuse 

 has been stamped out. Nowadays if a Public Analyst 

 finds flour or arrowroot in a sample bought as cocoa, 

 he describes it as adulterated, and the seller is prose- 

 cuted and fined. Hence, save for the presence of cacao 

 shell, the cocoa of the present day is a pure article 

 consisting simply of roasted, finely-ground cacao beans 

 partially de-fatted. The principal factors affecting the 

 quality of the finished cocoa are the difference in the 

 kind of cacao bean used, the amount of cacao butter 

 extracted, the care in preparation, and the amount of 

 cacao shell left in. 



