Cocoa and Chocolate
Modern Practice.
As the early stages in the manufacture of cocoa and of chocolate are often identical, the processes which are common to both are first described, and then some individual consideration is given to each.
(a) Arrival at the Factory.
The cacao is largely stored in warehouses, from which it is removed as required. It has remarkable keeping properties, and can be kept in a good store for several years without loss of quality. Samples of cacao beans in glass bottles have been found to be in perfect condition after thirty years. Some factories have stores in which stand thousands of bags of cacao drawn from many ports round the equator. There is something very pleasing about huge stacks of bags of cacao seen against the luminous white walls of a well-lighted store. The symmetry of their construction, and the continued repetition of the same form, are never better shown than when the men, climbing up the sides of a stack against which they look small, unbuild the mighty heap, the bags falling on to a continuous band which carries them jauntily out of the store.
PART OF A CACAO BEAN WAREHOUSE, SHOWING ENDLESS BAND CONVEYOR.
(Messrs. Cadbury Bros'. Works, Bournville).