104 The Fermentation of Cacao 
even sample or break cannot possibly be 
obtained by such a process; you had in fact 
a mere mixture of brown, violet and_ slate- 
coloured beans. The latter are often described 
in the trade as “unripe”; to my mind a per- 
fectly false designation, for they are beans that » 
have been completely excluded from fermenta- 
tion. : 
In all better managed plantations the beans 
are turned over by being shovelled or emptied 
from one box into another whilst the fermenta- 
tion process is going on. In deciding when 
this should be done the planter has to judge 
how long should be allowed before changing 
the cacao from one box to the other, whether 
every day or every other day, and what tem- 
perature should be maintained in the boxes; 
in either case the decisions arrived at are 
purely empirical. 
In the Cameroons’ it was customary at first 
to allow the cacao to sweat from three to 
four days, but now the period has been pro- 
longed. In San Thomé the methods em- 
ployed are more advanced, and the period of 
fermentation (or sweating) is not always regu- 
lated by time, but often by the appearance of 
the bean, but even here the fermentation is 
usually allowed to continue too long.t 
As I have already pointed out, fermentation 
' I cannot altogether agree with this; at any rate the 
San Thomé cacao I am in the habit of valuing does not 
give me the idea of being over-fermented.—H. H. S. 
