COCOA AND CHOCOLATE. Cocoa is the more familiar name of the article, the proper name of which is cacao ; just a reversal of the vowels. It is the cotyledon of the seeds of the cacao plant, which is extensively culti vated in many tropical countries. The Mexi cans call the tree chocolalt, and hence our name for the seed in a prepared state. The capsules of the fruit each contain about twenty-five seeds. The quality varies greatly ; and the Mexicans are accustomed, to'improve the flavour of the inferior sorts, to bury them in the earth in heaps, and allow them to fer ment for nearly a month. The kinds pro duced in different countries vary much in the quantity of the oil or butter of cacao width they contain ; a product to which much of the nutritious quality is due.
The simplest and best form of using cocoa is that of cocoa-nibs, consisting of the seeds roughly crushed. Flake cocoa is merely the seeds crushed between rollers. Common cocoa is usually the seeds pressed into cakes, or reduced to a paste.
Chocolate is cocoa brought to a further state of preparation. The seeds or beans, after
being carefully picked, are gently roasted in an iron cylinder; and when the aroma begins to be well developed, they are turned out, cooled, and sifted. They are then mixed into a paste, and put into moulds, and when dry they form the ordinary chocolate of the shops, especially in England ; but on the continent the chocolate is more frequently sold in a flavoured state, having had vanilla, cloves, cinnamon, almonds, starch, or sugar mixed with it. Lard, sago, and red lead are said to be used in the compounding of some of the cheap kinds of chocolate. The various patent' chocolates presented to our notice in the shops, are simply various modes of preparing the cocoa seeds.
The imports of cocoa are now becoming large. In 1848 they amounted to : British colonial cocoa .. 2,602,308 lbs.
Foreign „ 3,848,677 'lucks and shells .. 1,208,282 Chocolate and cocoa paste .. 13,016 7,672,284