Page:The food of the Gods - A Popular Account of Cocoa.djvu/84

Rh lose their brightness for a duller brown, and expand the skin, giving the bean a fuller shape. When dry, a properly cured bean should crush between the finger and thumb.

Finally the beans are turned on to a tray to dry in the sun. They are still sticky, but of a brown, mahogany colour. Among them are pieces of fibre and other "trash" as well as small, undersized beans, or "balloons," as the nearly empty shell of an unformed bean is called. While a man shovels the beans into a heap, a group of women, with skirts kilted high, tread round the sides of the heap, separating the beans that still hold together. Then the beans are passed on to be spread in layers on trays in the full heat of the tropical sun, the temperature being upwards of 140° F. When thus spread, the women can readily pick out the foreign matter and undersized beans. Two or three days will suffice to dry them, after which they are put in bags for the markets of the world, and will keep with but very slight loss of weight or aroma for a year or more.