AFebJwTi9a04nK}        Cocoa:  Its  Production  and  Use.  63 
following :  roasting ;  crushing  and  winnowing  to  remove  the  outer 
shell  and  the  husky  matter  which  lines  each  twist  and  fold  of  the 
kernel;  removing  the  hard  germ  or  radicle;  grinding  to  a  paste; 
cooling.  This  gives  cocoa.  If  it  is  to  be  made  into  sweet  chocolate, 
the  paste  is  flavored  and  sweetened.  All  the  operations  can  be  per- 
formed by  hand ;  but  machinery  has  been  developed  to  such  an 
extent  that  the  handwork  is  nearly  restricted  to  stoking  the  fires  and 
shifting  the  cocoa  from  time  to  time  into  positions  where  the  machin- 
ery  may  set  to  work  on  it. 
When  the  beans  are  broken  out  of  the  bags,  they  are  sifted,  cleaned 
and  sorted  in  order  to  remove  foreign  matter  and  unsound  beans. 
They  are  then  roasted  in  revolving  cylinders,  in  which  operation  the 
flavor  is  greatly  improved,  and  the  shell  and  kernel  become  brittle, 
so  that  they  are  easily  separated  from  each  other,  and  the  kernel 
is  easily  broken  into  small  grains.  The  beans  are  then  fed  into  a 
crusher,  which  breaks  them  into  small  pieces.  As  they  fall  from  the 
crusher,  a  blast  of  air  winnows  out  the  hull  and  the  tough  linings  of 
the  folds.  The  small  grains  of  pure  cocoa  and  the  hard  germs  fall 
together  in  one  pile.  The  grains  are  known  as  cocoa  nibs,  or 
cracked  cocoa.  Some  people  prefer  to  buy  the  nibs  rather  than  the 
further  prepared  cocoa,  because  they  feel  assured  that  in  this  form 
there  is  no  adulteration.  When  the  nibs  are  used,  they  require  fur- 
ther crushing  and  long  boiling  to  prepare  them  for  the  table.  In 
this  form  the  cocoa  contains  all  its  oil,  and  makes  an  exceedingly 
rich  beverage.  After  the  germs  are  removed  by  a  machine  especially 
adapted  to  that  purpose,  the  nibs  are  fed  to  heated  mill-stones,  or  to 
grinding  machines  which  work  on  much  the  same  principle.  In  the 
grinding  they  are  reduced  to  a  thick  paste,  and  not,  as  one  would 
expect,  to  a  powder.  This  is  due  to  the  great  amount  of  oil  which 
they  contain  and  which  the  heat  and  friction  soon  turns  into  a  fluid. 
During  the  grinding,  a  large  part  of  the  oil  oozes  from  the  machine, 
and  is  caught  in  drip-pans.  It  is  a  thick  and  creamy  liquid  ;  but 
upon  cooling,  it  hardens  into  a  waxy  solid  of  the  color  of  manila 
paper.  This  is  the  crude  cocoa  butter  of  commerce.  The  cocoa 
paste  then  has  some  of  the  oil  returned  to  it  or  some  taken  away, 
according  to  the  degree  of  richness  which  the  manufacturer  wishes 
his  product  to  have.  The  paste  is  then  placed  in  pans,  and  the 
resulting  cakes  are  the  cocoa,  or  "  plain  chocolate,"  from  which  the 
beverage  is  made.    When  the  cocoa  is  to  be  almost  entirely  free 
