Page:Cacao by Dahlgren, B. E. (Bror Eric).djvu/17

Rh is thought to be initiated by a yeast fungus, and an enzyme is said to bring out the characteristic chocolate flavor of the beans. Their kernels, originally white to purple in color, assume a brownish hue, while the papery thin shell often becomes discolored and spotted. The subsequent process of drying is necessary to prevent moulding and spoilage. To clean or polish the beans they are sometimes treaded with the naked feet, or "danced". In some localities they are colored with a red earth to improve their appearance. The dried "beans" will keep for a long time. A bearing tree in good condition, will yield a pound to two pounds of dried beans, usually in two principal harvests occurring about the beginning and middle of the year, though pods keep ripening to a certain extent continuously. The cacao bean "eats like a rich nut", but has a rather bitter taste.

It is perhaps well to point out here, that in spite of the similarity of names, cacao, or cocoa, has nothing to do either with the cocoa-nut, more properly spelled coco-nut, from the Coco-palm; nor with coca, the source of cocaine, obtained from the leaves of the Coca shrub of the Andean region.

As is the case among almost all cultivated plants there are many varieties of the Cacao tree proper, differing in minor particulars and in size and shape of the pods and in the color of the kernels. The best known of them are: the Criollo, which furnishes the finest chocolate; the Forastero, much resembling the former, but somewhat more hardy and yielding beans of not quite so fine a grade; the Calabacillo, with smooth pods, still easier to grow but yielding an inferior product. Of all of these, there are both red and yellow varieties.

The cacao beans are put in sacks and shipped to the manufacturers of chocolate products. In the factories they are first of all freed from the outer shell [ 33 ]