34 The Fermentation of Cacao 



" The coolie dexterously strips all the beans 

 off the centre stalk (placenta). The empty 

 pods are then thrown round the trees and act 

 as manure, while the beans are removed to the 

 fermenting cistern. It takes from five to nine 

 days to properly ferment the cacao and it is 

 then ready for working. It is trampled first, 

 as in coffee, with the feet, and then removed 

 in baskets and carefully hand-washed 1 . ... 1 

 have no doubt that before long some means 

 less expensive will be found for washing . . . 

 The prices obtained for it will depend, to a 

 more considerable degree, on the careful atten- 

 tion to the curing than in the case of coffee." 



SafTord, writing on cacao in Guam, 2 says : 



" Cacao beans are sometimes kept in jars 

 and allowed to ' sweat ' or undergo a sort of 

 fermentation which improves their flavour, but 

 this custom is not universal. Many families, 

 after having dried the beans in the sun, keep 

 them until required for use, when they roast 

 them as we do coffee, grind them and make 

 them into chocolate. Chocolate made from 

 the newly ground bean is especially rich and 

 aromatic." 



Hinchley Hart 3 writes : 



(l The prime object of sweating or fermenta- 



1 Such methods are followed in Ceylon and the East, 

 but not in America, as a rule. H. H. S. 



2 " Useful Plants of Guam." U. S. Nat. Mus., Contrib. 

 Nat. Herbarium, 9 (1905), p. 387. 



3 " Cacao." Trinidad, igco, 2nd ed., p. 38. 



