What Makes Bad Cocoa

WHEN buyers are inspecting your cocoa, they cut the beans longi tudinally and look for these bad features: — • GRUBBY: That is, any sign, how ever slight, of insect attack. Insect attack does not, as a rule, affect flavour of finished product; importance lies in the fact that heavily infested beans represent a menace to the storing establishment. • MOULDY: Beans should show no signs of mould inside; any percentage over five per cent, will have an adverse effect on flavour of the finished product. • UNFERMENTED: If beans are not sufficiently fermented they are grey to black in colour (in the case of Forastero): or almost white (in the case of Criollo).

Forastero shows a mottled appearance on face of bean. • SHRIVELLED: A shrivelled bean is thin and flat—roasting and kibbling gives little or no nib (small crushed pieces). • GERMINATED: In a germinated bean the radicle protrudes through bottom of bean or is missing entirely. Is not lower in quality than a good bean but it can be readily infested because the radicle, in falling out, leaves an entry hole. • PARTLY FERMENTED; A partly fer mented bean is intermediate in character between unfermented and good—it shows colour partly black or violet, tight in shell. Cheesy when cut. Affects flavour if high percentage is included. • IMMATURE; Immature beans need no description. New Guinea shipments al ways have a percentage included.

Some Further Pointers;

• Absence of mould shows that drying conditions were good. • Partly fermented beans are evidence that fermentation was conducted for insufficient period. • Con siderable variation in size is not liked by manufacturers because smaller beans tend to be over roasted. • Shell per centage obtained by removing shells and weighing shows Accra averages 12 per cent.; it is undesirable for NG beans to exceed this percentage.