126 The Fermentation of Cacao 



sample, and he would thus gradually gain a 

 knowledge as to what kind of goods are in 

 demand. The duplicate samples should be 

 carefully preserved from the damp by being 

 packed in metal boxes or in suitable glass 

 receptacles. 



I need hardly mention that the packages 

 i.e., the bags, shipped should be uniform in 

 shape and weight. 



The Fermentation of Coffee. 



When, in 1902, I had brought my investiga- 

 tion relative to cacao fermentation and oxida- 

 tion to- a successful issue, it was natural that 

 the idea should strike me to extend my experi- 

 ments to coffee. In this matter, however, I 

 could obtain no definite results in Germany, 

 so I renewed my experiments in San Thome, 

 using freshly gathered coffee. I found that, 

 contrary to what occurs in cacao, acidification 

 had an unfavourable influence on the quality 

 of coffee, for it slowly caused the beautiful 

 greenish-grey colour to again become the 

 yellowish-white of the freshly gathered beans, 

 in which case an infusion of the roasted beans 

 tasted flat and had no body. 



In my first experiments I treated the freshly 

 gathered beans, after freeing them as much as 

 possible from the fruit pulp, just as I did with 

 the cacao beans ; that is to say, I subjected 

 the coffee-beans to an alcoholic and acetic fer- 

 mentation, and allowed the oxygen of the air 



