THE HOUSE OF WALTER BAKER &- CO. 



59 



the roasted seeds ; and second, increasing the miscibility of the pow- 

 dered seeds by securing the greatest practicable degree of fineness. 



While the oil of the chocolate seed is perfectly wholesome, there are 

 some persons who find in the percentage natural to the seeds an amount 

 too large for easy digestion. The removal of a part of this, which 

 might with propriety be called an excess of the oil, was practised even 

 in very early days, as is seen in the cut herewith given, taken from an 

 old work on the subject. 



The method of manufacture is substantially as follows : the ground 

 fragments of roasted seeds are subjected to hydraulic pressure, by 

 which a certain amount of the fat is eliminated. 

 The pressed mass is, in the most successful 

 process, treated mechanically in such a man- 

 ner as to divide and subdivide the minute 

 particles until they are capable of passing 

 through a sieve having several thousand 

 meshes to the square inch. But such pulver- 

 ization as this would, under ordinary circum- 

 stances, reduce the mass to a dull and unat- 

 tractive powder. In the process devised by 

 the Walter Baker Company, this high degree 

 of fineness is secured without any loss of 

 brilliancy in the powder, the color being 

 of the bright red which is not only attractive in appearance, but when 

 conjoined with the natural chocolate odor and flavor is characteristic 

 of absolutely pure cocoa of the highest grade. 



It is instructive to compare such cocoa with the cocoas prepared 

 by what is known as the Dutch process. The latter are prepared 

 by treatment with alkaline matters, which act on the coloring sub- 

 stances in the seeds, increasing the apparent effect of hot water when 

 the latter is added. In chemically prepared cocoas, the exquisite 

 natural odor and flavor of pure cocoa seeds have been diminished 



OLD PRESS FOR REMOV- 

 ING EXCESS OF OIL. 



