SECTION I. 



DRIED LEAVES, SEEDS, AND OTHER SUBSTANCES USED IN THE 

 PREPARATION OF POPULAR DIETETIC BEVERAGES. 



No substances are so essentially necessary to mankind, or form 

 such important articles of commerce, as those which we come first 

 to consider, the dietetic products cacao, coffee, tea, and sugar. 

 The consumption of these in all civilized countries is immense, 

 notwithstanding that in many they have been fettered with heavy 

 fiscal duties. The investigation of the culture of the plants from 

 which they are obtained, and the manufacture of the products, is 

 a very curious object of research. 



CACAO OE COCOA. 



The chocolate nuts or seeds, termed cacao, are the fruit of species 

 of Tkeobroma, an evergreen tree, native of the Western Conti- 

 nent. That commonly grown is T. cacao; but Lindley enumerates 

 two other species, T. bicolor, a native of New Granada ; and 

 T. Guianensis, with yellow flowers, a native of G-uiana. The seeds 

 being nourishing and agreeable to most people, are kept in the 

 majority of houses in America, as a part of the provisions of the 

 family. By pressure they yield fatty oil, called butter of cacao. 

 They also contain a crystalline principle analagous to caffeine, 

 called theobromiiie. The common cacao of the shops consists 

 generally of the roasted beans, and sometimes of the roasted in- 

 teguments of the beans, ground to powder. The consumption of 

 cacao in the United Kingdom is about three millions of pounds 

 annually, yielding a revenue of 15,500. Few tropical products 

 are more valuable or more useful as food to man than cacao. It 

 is without any exception the cheapest food that we can conceive, 

 and were it more generally employed, so that the berries should 

 not be more than two, three, or, at most, six months old, from the 

 time of gathering (for, if kept longer, they lose their nutritive 

 properties), even a smaller quantity than that usually taken in a cup 

 would suflice : in fact, cacao cannot be too new. The cacao beans 

 lie in a fruit somewhat like a cucumber, about five inches long and 

 three-and-a-half inches thick, which contains from twenty to thirty 



