Part 6 (2/2)

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?

MANUFACTURER: Simply that claying is camouflage. Actually the buyer doesn't mind so long as the clay is not too generously used. He objects to paying for beans and getting clay.

However, it's really too bad to colour up with clay the black cacao from diseased pods; it might deceive even experienced brokers.

PLANTER: Ha! ha! Then it's a very sinful practice. I don't think that ever gets beyond the local tropical market. I know the merchants judge largely by ”the skin,” but I thought the London broker----.

MANUFACTURER: You see it's like this. Just as you a.s.sociate a certain label with a particularly good brand of cigar so the planter's mark on the bag and the external appearance of the beans influence the broker by long a.s.sociation. But just as you cannot truly judge a cigar by the picture on the box, so the broker has to consider what is under the sh.e.l.l of the bean. One or two manufacturers go further, but don't trust merely to ”tasting with their eyes”--they only come to a conclusion when they have roasted a sample.

PLANTER: But a buyer can get a shrewd idea without roasting, surely? You agree. Well, what exactly does he look for?

MANUFACTURER: Depends what nationality the bean is--I mean whether it was grown in Venezuela, Brazil, Trinidad, or the Gold Coast. In general he likes beans with a good ”break,”

that is beans which, under the firm pressure of thumb and forefinger, break into small crisp nibs. Closeness or cheesiness are danger signals, warnings of lack of fermentation,--so is a slate-coloured interior. He prefers a pale, even-coloured interior,--cinnamon, chocolate, or cafe-au-lait colour and----.

PLANTER: One moment! I've heard before of planters being told to ferment and cure until the bean is cinnamon colour. Why, man, you couldn't get a pale brown interior with beans of the Forastero or Calabacillo type if you fermented them to rottenness.

MANUFACTURER: True! Well, if the breed on your plantation is purple Forastero, and more than half of the cacao in the world is, you must develop as much brown in the beans as possible. They should have the characteristic refres.h.i.+ng odour of raw cacao, together with a faint vinegary odour. The buyers much dislike any foreign smell, any mouldy, hammy, or cheesy odour.

PLANTER: And where do the foreign odours come from?

MANUFACTURER: That's debatable. Some come from bad fermentations, due to dirty fermentaries, abnormal temperatures, or unripe cacao.[7] Some come from smoky or imperfect artificial drying. Some come from mould.

Unfermented cacao is liable to go mouldy, so is germinated or over-ripe cacao with broken sh.e.l.ls. Some cacao unfortunately gets wet with sea water. There always seems to me something pathetic in the thought of finely-cured cacao being drowned in sea water as it goes out in open boats to the steamer.

PLANTER: You see, we haven't piers and jetties everywhere, and often it's a long journey to them. Well, you've told me the buyers note break, colour and aroma. Anything else?

MANUFACTURER: They like large beans, partly because largeness suggests fineness, and partly because with large beans the percentage of sh.e.l.l is less. Small flat beans are very wasteful and unsatisfactory; they are nearly all sh.e.l.l and very difficult to separate from the sh.e.l.l.

PLANTER: When there's a drought we can't help ourselves; we produce quant.i.ties of small flat beans.

MANUFACTURER: It must be trying to be at the mercy of the weather. However, the weather doesn't prevent the dirt being picked out of the beans. Buyers don't like more than half a per cent. of rubbish; I mean stones, dried twig-like pieces of pulp, dust, etc., left in the cacao, neither do they like to see ”cobs,” that is, two or more beans stuck together, nor----.

PLANTER: How about gloss?

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