212 
THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. [September i, 1890. 
the analyees and recommendations of the Japanese 
writer are of small importance. 
The p'per will be of more use as food for reflec- 
tion to the Anglo-Indian planter than as direct instruc- 
tion. The palate ot the Englishman is as yet only 
V ry roughly educated in tea. There can be very few 
E g :s men who would greatly prefer the superior 
tea of Japan and China to the ordinary Kumaou or 
Ceylon lea; mo^t persons used tu drinking the latter 
word proi'ahly prefer it to the most e.xpensive tea 
midr — say China tea wor h forty shillings per pound 
in Chi a. The English planter in Bengal has a tea- 
g r.leu o ' 20U aore^ (possibly still larger). His objfcfc 
.s, by 'he ad of a steam-engine or other coarse help, 
to pu his tea through — to keep his laotory clear 
when ire has a .strong flush on- He has to carry the 
daily mak>r through by the aid of uncivilized labourers 
and overseers. He must reduce every step of his 
manufacture to a routine; he mast have no special 
tea separately and differently manufactured, and no 
current experiments. Few p'anters havs made much 
profit by Pekoe; and the green tea hardly exists 
commercially in India. There are no doubt many 
Buglishmeii who, having not a plantation but (literally) 
a garden with some tea in it in India, have manu- 
facmrid, nob unsuccessfully so for as the flavour of 
the tea is concerned, green tea. Pekoe; &c., but this 
has been a fancy artic e for their own drinking or 
for p esents, and has never been put in any quantity 
on the market. To plant successfully in Imiia, ihe 
EnglisLmau has to proceed on a broad scale; his large 
cost and hitih expected profit cannot be got out of 
the close superiuteiideuce of elaborate hand manu- 
facture. Or, at least, it will be a long time before 
the public tea taste at home is sufficiently elevated 
to be willing to pay so large a price for such teas 
as would remunerate the English planter. For the 
present, the object of the planter must be to produce 
the maximum quantity of tea that the English grocer 
can sell at l.i;. 6J. to 2s. 6cl. a pound. Hence to plan- 
ters the u ility of the paper of Y. Kozai must be 
mainly future. — Nature. 

CONCEENING COCOA. 
Cacao seeds, or cacao beaus, or “ cocoa nibs ” as 
they are commonly known in the trade, are the fruit 
of the cacao tree, They grow in large fleshy rotund 
pods. The cacao tree belongs to the natural order 
of the Stercular ia, &nd its botanical name is Tluobroma 
cacao. This name was ass’gned to it by Linnseus, the 
gri-at botanist, as an indication of the high appreci- 
ation in which he held the beverage prepared from 
the seeds. The word theobroma really means “ food 
fit for the gods.” There are ne.arly a dozen varieties 
of the cacao tree, and these flourish in the ’t’Vest 
Judies chiefly, but are aho cultiva.tcd aud grow wild 
in the northern part of South America, and in Cen- 
tral America north as far as Mexico. The best kind 
is indigenous to Venezuela, aud the cocoa which it 
XJroduces is known as Caracas ; that which comes 
from Trinidad perhaps rants next In quality. The 
ca'ao tree is beiug cultivated in various other 
parts of the world, wherever the climate is found 
suit bT, fiT there is an ever-increasing demand for 
the ‘•nibs” on the European markets. Hislory re- 
late. tb'f the seed of Theobroma cacao were first 
liesc i ed by no less a per.sonage than Captaiu Gon- 
zalo Feriiandez de Oviedo y Valdc“. About the mid- 
I le ' f the sixleeoth century he writes that Columbus 
f u id the natives of Vucar.nn using these seeds as 
n o ley, just as some of the ab uigiues of Africa 
are I < wrie -hells. In those times the iSpaniurds were 
r pi'lly exu-iiding thrir conquests and colonies in the 
..few Wo 1(1, having received carle hlaiiclic from Fope 
/-levaider 'VI., who issued a liull grarnii.g all east 
of a lino ore hundred htagucs w<->st of the Azores 
to I'or ugai, and all west of this imaginary lino to 
.■.-.jjBii) I In Spani.r-li litfrature of the latter part of 
ttii; iccciith cfeniury ihi re are frciqueut reforeuees 
to the uses of the cac.no seeds. 
Cacao seeds arc very rich in ( il : in the sliclhnl state 
th'.y jifcW nearly 5U percent, of a thick buttery oil, 
which is known in trade as cacao butter. At ordin- 
ary temperatures this oil is nearly solid, in fact is 
much like soap in consistency and general appearance. 
The average composition of cacao seeds, according to 
Wanklyn’s analysis, is shown by the following per- 
centages : — Fat or cacao butter, .50 00 ; albumen, 
fibrin, and gluten, 18 00; starch, lO’OO ; gummy and 
mucilaginous matters, 8'Od ; colouring matters, 2'60 ; 
water, 6-00 ; theobromine, I'oO ; ash, 3’60; loss, &c., 
0’30 : total, 100 00. The husk of the seed is usually 
stripp- d off before exportation ; it is composed of 
three distinct layers or membranes. By means of the 
microscope the outer layer is seen to consist largely 
of elongated cells, the tniddle layer consist of angular 
oel'S containing muciiaginous matter, whilst the inner 
layer is a mere membrane or pellicle, and is composed 
of angular cells which contain oil. The starch is 
located in the seed proper, or “ nib,” which is built 
up of small cells distended with grains of starch ; 
delicate reagents will detect traces of inuliu in these 
tissues. AVauklyn’s averages put the percentage of 
theobromine rather high, aud he must have examined 
a number of exceptionally fine samples ; other ob- 
servers state that the seeds only contain about 0'5 
per cent, of theobromine, and doubtless their results 
are not wrong, but have been compiled from the ex- 
aminations of different varieties cf cacao. It is wonder- 
ful what a difference slight variations in the consti- 
tuents of the soil or in the species of a tree will 
make in the chemical composition of the crop. 
The question naturally arises, AVhat is theobromine ? 
Now, although it exists in such very small proportions 
(from about one-half to about one and a half per 
cent.) ill the cocoa nib, it must not be supposed 
therefore that it is insignificant ; indeed, it is to the 
presence of this substance that cocoa owes its peculiar 
properties as a beverage. Theobromine bears to cocoa 
an analogous relation to that which exists between 
caffeine (oi theiue, as it is also called) and tea or 
coffee. It is a rather remarkable fact that caffeine 
is very closely conuected with theobromine, considered 
from a chemical point of view, for both these substances 
belong to what is called the uric acid group of chemical 
compounds. They only occur in the vegetable kingdom, 
and were formerly classed amongst the alkaloids, 
that is, amongst such poisonous substances as strych- 
iiiue, morphine, &c. ; but the recent researches of 
several well-known scientists have demonstrated that 
they are both analogous to uric acid and to other 
similar bodies which exist in the animal organism. 
These facts seem at first to provide matter for un- 
pleasant reflection, but we must remember that we 
are only dealing with chemical analogies. 
We can represent the composition of theobromine by a 
formula, thai is to say, by “ chemical shorthand ” — it is 
C,H,N., 02 , which implies that seven atoms of carbon, 
eight of hydrogen, four of nitrogen, and two of 
oyxgeu have all united together to form this substance. 
The honour of having discovered theobromine is due 
to AVoskresensby. By extracting the pounded “ nibs ” 
with boiling water, precipitating with lead acetate, 
then treating the clear liquid which remains after 
filtering with sulphuretted hydrogen, aud finally 
boiling with alcohol, theobromine will separate out 
from tbe cooled liquid in the form of beautiful micro- 
scopic crystal.'. These crystals are slightly soluble in 
cold wat(.r, and the solut.on possesses a curious 
bitter taste, which becomes preceptible after a time. 
The bitter principle, of coffee and tta, namely caf- 
feine, is strictly .speaking, methyl-theobromine, 
C,H,oN.,0,. Theobromine has actually been found 
along with caffeine in tbe young leaves of the Hi- 
ma aya tea,. Its effects upon the human system are 
mildly stimulatiug. 
Cocoa, as we understand it nowadays, is the roasted 
and ground cocoa-nib, the husk having been previously 
ri moved. Everyone probably knows that although 
the “nibs” can be obtained whole or broken, most 
of the cocoa sold is either rock cocoa, flake cocoa, 
or prepared powdered cocoa. Cocoa is too rich m 
fat to suit the digestions of the general public, 
hence many manufacturers eliminate more or Jess of 
it. Others iucorjjorate ai certain amount of starch 
