1872 Cooling Cups and Dainty Drinks (Mixellany)

142 Temperate Beverages. West Indies and other tropical parts of the world. The best cocoa comes from Caraccas, Trinidad, and Surinam; there are also other places pro- ducing good cocoa. The cocoa-tree is, both in size and shape, similar to a young cherry-tree ; the fruit is dispersed on short stalks over the stem and principal branches. The tree bears flowers and fruit simultaneously, and yields two crops of berries annually; these are fit for gathering in June and December; a good bearing tree producing from 20 to 30 pods, which average 20 to 30 nuts, from which the manufacturers produce cocoa or chocolate. The colour of the pods changes from green to yellow when they are gathered. "When two pods happen to grow together, one extracts all the nutrition from the other, thriving on its decay. Cocoa and chocolate are prepared from the nuts, by freeing them from the pulp and then making them undergo a process similar to malting; they are afterwards roasted in a perfor- ated cylinder, and are then freed from their husks and made into cocoa or chocolate, which is similar to cocoa, but made into a paste, and contains sugar, and generally some flavouring addition, as vanilla or other aromatic substance. Chocolate was made in Mexico and other parts long before the discovery