Cocoa and Chocolate: Their History from Plantation to Consumer

by Arthur William Knapp

MANUFACTURER: No! Good of one type with good of another type.

PLANTER: What do you mean exactly by good?

MANUFACTURER: By good I mean large, ripe, well-cured beans. By indifferent I mean unripe and unfermented. By abominable I mean germinated, mouldy, and grubby beans. Happily, the last class is quite a small one.

PLANTER: You don't mean to tell me that only the good cacao sells?

MANUFACTURER: Unfortunately, no! There are users of inferior beans. Practically all the cacao produced—good and indifferent—is bought by someone. Most manufacturers prefer the fine, healthy, well fermented kinds.

PLANTER: Well fermented! They have a strange way of showing their preference. Why, they often pay more for Guayaquil than they do for Grenada cacao. Yet Guayaquil is never properly fermented, whilst that from the Grenada estates is perfectly fermented.

MANUFACTURER: Agreed. Just as you would pay more for a badly-trained thoroughbred than for a well-trained mongrel. It's breed they pay for. The Guayaquil breed is peculiar; there is nothing else like it in the world. You might think the tree had been grafted on to a spice tree. It has a fine characteristic aroma, which is so powerful that it masks the presence of a high percentage of unfermented beans. However, if Guayaquil cacao was well-fermented it would (subject to the iron laws of Supply and Demand) fetch a still higher price, and there would not be the loss there is in a wet season when the Guayaquil cacao, being unfermented, goes mouldy. I think in Grenada they plant for high yield, and not for quality, for the bean is small and approaches the inferior Calabacillo breed. Its value is maintained by an amazing evenness and an uniform excellence in curing. The way in which it is prepared for the market does great credit to the planters.

PLANTER: They don't clay there, do they?

MANUFACTURER: No! and yet it is practically impossible to find a mouldy bean in Grenada estates cacao. Evidently claying is not a necessity—in Grenada.

PLANTER: Ha! ha! By that I suppose you insinuate that it is not a necessity in Trinidad, where the curing is also excellent. Or in Venezuela? What's the buyer's objection to claying?