CACAO FERMENTATION 145 



may grow a certain quality, or strain, and yet in that very 

 strain itself will be found numerous varieties. It cannot 

 be doubted that fine mixed strains exist on many West 

 Indian estates, but they might be far better, and would 

 become of greater value, if selection and vegetative 

 reproduction were adopted, instead of the propagation 

 from seed which surely gives immediate rise to variations 

 of many kinds. 



The white-seeded varieties of Nicaragua, Venezuela, 

 and Trinidad, require but a short fermentation to acquire 

 a fine colour, aroma, and flavour; and quality in other 

 cacaos may be readily traced by difference in the beans, 

 starting from white or straw-coloured interiors and loosely 

 laid cotyledons, gradually increasing in colour until a deep 

 purple is reached, with hard compact cotyledons. The 

 lighter-coloured represent high class, the dark purple 

 the lower, with harsh flavour, little aroma, and " cheesy " 

 break. J. R. Martin reporting to the Planters' Associa- 

 tion, Ceylon, in 1891, has a paragraph as follows : 



" The break of West Indian growths, so far as I have 

 had an opportunity of observing, was invariably very dark 

 brown or purple ; which indicates that the cacao is of the 

 Forastero variety, and every cacao planter knows that no 

 care or curing will alter this characteristic." 



In general this is correct, but it is quite possible to find 

 pods with all the external appearance of typical Forastero 

 which sections of the bean will prove to be closely related 

 to the CrioUo types by the light-coloured beans which 

 appear, and from such pods there is no difficulty in obtain- 

 ing a break and aroma which compare to some degree 

 with that of the Criollo type. 



In some countries cacao is washed, but in the West 

 Indies this practice is seldom adopted. The forms adopted 

 for " sweating boxes " vary according to the facilities 

 afforded for keeping them under cover. In Grenada, 

 concrete tanks are used on some estates, but wooden 

 boxes in form of cubes of 3 to 4 ft. are the common kind 

 in Trinidad. These are built of stout planks, and provided 



