2 The Philippine Journal of Science 1917 



that fermentation alone brings out the best flavor. Bainbridge 

 and Davies 5 have shown that this flavor is due to the presence 

 of an essential oil, which they believe is formed during the 

 process of fermentation. 



The only discordant voice raised at this Congress was that 

 of Professor Perrot, of the Ecole Superieure de Pharmacie, 

 Paris, who reported an experiment in which he submitted 200 

 kilograms of cacao, sterilized at the Ivory Coast, to one of the 

 French chocolate concerns. When roasted, this cacao became 

 fragrant and in no respect was inferior to the products obtained 

 by fermentation in the same region. He states that the pulp 

 was removed by means of potassium carbonate solution and that 

 the color was a fine violet. These two properties, the tenacity 

 of the pulp and the violet color of the ribs, are characteristic 

 of the unfermented cacao and are reasons for fermenting, since 

 both are undesirable. 



Knapp, 6 in discussing the Perrot method, states that the 

 beans had a compact, cheesy interior, that they dried more slowly 

 than the fermented beans, and that the process would be more 

 costly than the present methods and would require skilled labor. 

 He concludes with a plea for the encouragement of the use of 

 the best-known methods of fermenting by the planters. In his 

 book on cacao, van Hall 7 says of fermentation : 



All based on the same principle and have the same effect. This effect 

 is the development of an essential oil, which gives the cocoa its peculiar 

 aroma ; the conversion of part of the bitter-tasting compound, so as to lessen 

 the bitter taste ; and, finally, the liberation of the theobromine, the substance 

 which gives cocoa its peculiar tonic and stimulating properties. 



These prominent authorities agree, with the exception of 

 Professor Perrot, that the fermentation of cacao produces an 

 improved product even though the changes taking place are not 

 completely understood. To obtain various data that might 

 throw some light on this process, the experiments recorded in this 

 paper were performed. However, before this phase of the 

 work is taken up, several other points will be discussed. 



Recently I have had an inquiry from the Hershey Chocolate 

 Company in which a method for the improvement of the color 

 in poorly fermented cacao was requested. 



'Bainbridge, J. S., and Davies, S. H., Journ. Chem. Soc. London (1912), 

 101, 2209. 



•Knapp, A. W., Trop. Life (1915), 9, 227. 



'Van Hall, C. J. J., Cacao. Macmillan & Co., London (1914), 201. 



