FOOD VALUE OF CACAO, ETC. 115 



Wishing to know what was really the percentage of sugar 

 in manufactured Chocolate of the best makers, I obtained a. 

 sample which was sold at the rate of three shillings per lb. in 

 Port-of-Spain, the capital of Trinidad. In this pound I found 

 '65 per cent, of sucrose, which might be either cane or 

 beet sugar. At any rate there was present 65 per cent, 

 •of sugar, in the one pound of chocolate. Allowing this to have 

 been of the very best class it could not have cost the manufac- 

 turers at wholesale prices more than 3 cents per lb. 



The 35 per cent. Cacao and other material may be well 

 estimated as follows : — The loss on roasting and grinding Cacao 

 by hand is 27 to 30 per cent. The value of raw Cacao per lb. 

 is about 14 cents, and by adding 30 per cent, to the original cost 

 and make up for waste, we have a value for clean unground Cacao 

 of some 20 cents per lb. Take manufacture, grinding, &c., 

 to represent a value of 100 per cent, (which would be an extreme 

 estimate) we should have 40 cents — as the price of 1 lb. of 

 prepared Chocolate without admixture of sugar. If again, we 

 take 35 per cent, of 40 cents — we have 14 cents for the cost of 

 the Cacao mixed in a pound of chocolate. This added to the 

 •cost of sugar (some 14 cents), gives 18 cents or 9d. as the cost 

 of first class prepared Chocolate which is sold at four times this 

 value or 3 shillings per pound. 



It seems a curious thing that the public have not as yet 

 become alive to the fact that they are paying fur sugar in the 

 form of Chocolate at a ridiculously high rate. For out of every 

 100 tons of chocolate sold there are 65 tons of sugar sold at 

 3 shillings per lb. or at the rate of £336 per ton, while the 

 poor planter is glad if he can get some £8 to £12 per ton. 



The " manufacture " of large establishments is not dealt 

 with in this treatise. To discuss (even if we were competent to 

 -do so) the various blendings of the different classes of produce, 

 •the " milling," the sweetening, the packing, and the thousand 

 and one operations which go on in a large factory would more 

 than fill 100 pages by itself, and I therefore leave it for more 

 able hands. 



The word "Cocoa" appears to be of European origin, and 

 has caused no little confusion owing to the similarity of its 

 sound to words which name entirely different products, such as 

 Coconut, Coca, Cocoes, &c., &c. Cacao is the original name and 

 under the rules of priority, it is considered the proper one to 

 use, and it has therefore been adopted throughout this work ia 

 preference to the Enghah spelling. 



