PBEPAEATION OF CUTCH AND KATTHA. 223 



CHAPTER II.— PREPARATION OF CUTCH AND 

 KATTHA. 



These two substances, popularly regarded as more or less iden- 

 tical, are really entirely distinct. The wood from which both 

 extracts are obtained is principally the Acacia Catechu, although 

 that of the very much less common Acacia Suma also yields them. 

 These woods are impregnated with a mixture of catechu tannin and 

 catechin, so that the extract contains both substances intimately 

 mixed together, and it is cutch or kattha according to the respective 

 proportions of these two substances present in it. Whether a tree 

 will yield kattha or catechu is at once ascertained by cutting into 

 the heartwood and noting the abundance or otherwise of white 

 spots on the section ; these white spots are incrustations of cate- 

 chin. If the proportion of white spots is very small, cutch is the 

 produce obtained. 



The extract of both kinds is prepared in a similar manner. The 

 heartwood is split up into thin chips with an adze. The chips are 

 boiled for one or more hours in an earthen vessel, and the solution 

 obtained is poured on to fresh chips and boiled over again. This 

 process is repeated until the liquor acquires the consistency of a 

 very thick syrup. For the preparation of kattha this syrup is 

 boiled, still in earthen pots, until it becomes a thick paste, when 

 it is cooled and poured off into moulds scooped out in fine dry 

 sand. As a result of the cooling, the catechin crystallises, while 

 the tannin, still in a state of solution, is to a great extent absorbed 

 by the sand. Thus what is left behind is catechin with a small 

 proportion of tannin. In Burma, where it is cutch that is pre- 

 pared, the syrup is poured into iron pans, in which it is boiled 

 down to a thick paste, this paste solidifying on cooling. Iron has 

 such a great affinity for catechin, that the boiling in the iron pans 

 destroys most of the catechin in the extracts. 



Both the methods just described are extremely clumsy and slov- 

 enly, as the dried extract often contains more than 4 per cent, of 

 wood, while in the kattha there may be further admixture of as 

 much as 16 per cent, of sand. If the manufacture were taken in 

 hand in a systematic manner on scientific principles, special appara- 

 tus could be introduced, which would not only save labour, time, 



