iSdible Products. 



532 



[December, 1908. 



the most important organism causing 

 the fermentation, while other authors 

 attribute the fermentation to unorgan- 

 ized ferments, others again to bacteria, 

 and even the changes due to germina- 

 tion were supposed to play a role in it. 



According to George Watt, in his 

 Dictionary of the Economic Products of 

 India 6 : — 



The coolie dexterously strips all the 

 beans off the centre pulp. The pods 

 are then thrown round the trees and act 

 as manure, while the beans are re- 

 moved to the fermenting cistern. It 

 takes from five to nine days to pro- 

 perly ferment the cacao, and it is then 

 ready for working. It is trampled first, 

 as in coffee, with the feet and then 

 removed in baskets and carefully hand- 



washedt I have no doubt that 



before long some means less expensive 



will be found for washing 



The prices obtained for it will depend in 

 a much greater measure on the care- 

 ful attention of the curing than in the 

 case of coffee. 



Safford, writing on cacao in Guam! 

 says :— - 



Cacao beans are sometimes kept in 

 jars and allowed to " sweat" or undergo 

 a sort of fermentation which improves 

 their flavour, but this custom is not uni- 

 versal. Many families, after having 

 dried the beans in the sun, keep them 

 until required for use, when they 

 toast them as we do coffee, grind them 

 and make them into chocolate. Choco- 

 late made from the newly-ground bean 

 is especially rich and aromatic, 



Hinchley Hart writes : — 



The prime object of sweating or fer- 

 mentation appears to be to change the 

 inside portion of the bean by absorbing 

 into it products obtained from the fer- 

 menting pulp, and where this is not fully 

 accomplished by any of the methods 

 the bean is classed as unfermented, and 

 the product is generally of lower value. 



The changes [brought about by the 

 fermentation have been minutely ex- 

 amined by J. B. Harrison, chemist in 

 British Guiana. Some of the changes 

 observed, as for example, the decrease 

 of protein in the seed and the increase 

 of amido compounds, are only incidental 

 and not of any importance, since they 



* London, 1893, vol. 6, pt. 44. 

 f Such methods'are followed in India, but not 

 in America. 



J Useful plants of Guam. U. S. Nat, Mus., 

 Contrib., Nat. Herbarium, 9 (1908), 387. 

 | Cacao. Trinidad, 1900, 2 ed., p. 38. 



do not affect the colour, which is simply 

 due to the action of a proteolytic enzyme 

 in the seed. 



The principal conclusions reached by 

 Harrison are that the process of "fermen- 

 tation or sweating in cacao consists in 

 an alcoholic fermentation of the sugars 

 in the pulp of the fruit accompanied by 

 a loss of some of the albuminoid and 

 indeterminate nitrogenous constituents 

 of the beans, * * * and some parts of the 

 carbohydrates other than sugars undergo 

 hydrolysis and either escape in the 

 runnings from the boxes in the form of 

 glucose or undergo in turn the alcoholic 

 and acetic fermentations." Further, he 

 declares: "During this change some of 

 the astringent matters, to which the 

 somewhat acrid taste of the raw beans 

 is due, are also hydrolyzed, and thus a 

 marked improvement in flavour is 

 gained." Finally, he adds : "This work 

 has necessarily only resulted in a partial 

 and incomplete study of the results of 

 the fermentation." 



The so-called fermentation is carried 

 out either by heaping the fresh seeds, 

 after separating them from the shell, 

 on the floor or in receptacles and cover- 

 ing them with banana leaves or with 

 cloth. The floor or the receptacles slope 

 so that the watery products can escape 

 during the fermentation. A period of 

 two to six days, according to circum- 

 stances, is usually allowed for fermenta- 

 tion. The height of the heaped seed 

 measures 1 to 15 meters and over. In 

 some countries the highest temperature 

 allowed for fermentation is 45° C, in 

 others 50° C. According to Hart " there 

 is danger in allowing (the temperature) 

 to rise above 140° F. (60° C), aa the 

 character of the product is sure to suffer." 

 An apparatus has been recently devised 

 by M. Schulte in which a constant tem- 

 perature of 60° C. is maintained. In this 

 case the yeast is fully excluded and 

 bacteria with few exceptions also, and 

 the necessary changes are brought on 

 mainly by the heat, but this method 

 has been considered too tedious and 

 of little value to cacao planters, as is 

 shown by Maurice Montet in his criti- 

 cism of the apparatus. 



The rise of temperature amounts to 

 about 5° C in twenty-four hours, and 

 after four days the fermenting beans 

 show generally an elevation of 18° to 

 20° C. above the temperature of the sur- 

 rounding atmosphere. The more or 

 less rapid rise of temperature in the 

 fermenting pile depends, of course, 

 upon the height of the pile and upon 

 the temperature of the surrounding air. 



The cacao fruit resembles a cucumber 

 in shape, but the form is subject to 



