Читать книгу The Manufacture of Chocolate and other Cacao Preparations - Paul Zipperer - Страница 13

Cacao cultivation in Africa is of comparatively recent date. The plantations found on the three islands San Thomé and Principe (Portuguese), and Fernando Po (Spanish), lying in the Gulf of Guinea, are the oldest. To the first-named island may be traced much of the impulse given to cacao plantation in other African districts, so rapid has been its success here, under the energetic guidance of the skilful Portuguese planter, and the yet more effective propitious climatic influences and favourable industrial conditions.

Rare sorts are nowhere to be met with, for the Forastero bean has conquered the whole of Africa. The sorts produced are accordingly rather adapted for general consumption. St. Thomas and the Gold Coast provide a third of the world’s present-day cacao supply, and in the English colony especially, the geological and climatic conditions are of such a kind, that the

Gold Coast might very well become to the raw cacao market of the future what the Brazilian province, San Paulo, is now to the coffee trade.

In the middle of the “Eighties”, the Swiss Missionary Society planted in the vicinity of their station, and so started the cultivation of the cacao tree now flourishing throughout the land. The first fruits came to Europe in 1891, and in 1894 already totalled 20 tons. In 1901 it was 1,000 tons, 1906 approaching 10,000 tons, and the year 1911 provided the record with about 40,000 tons. It is true that complaints were long and rightly lodged concerning the inferior quality, due to carelessness on the part of the natives in conducting the processes of preparation. But since the year 1909, there have appeared on the market side by side with the inferior and so-called current qualities, which still retains more or less of the defects of the earlier produce, another and properly fermented cacao, in no mean quantities; it is very popular in all cacao-consuming lands, and fetches from 2 to 3 shillings per cwt. more than the current qualities. All this has been achieved through intelligent and sympathetic guidance and control of the small native planter on the government’s part, without resource to any large organised plantation system.

Accra cacao, then, as the sorts of the African Gold Coast are collectively named, also promises to be the cacao of the future, if it can maintain its quantitative and qualitative excellence. There is indeed no want of soil and adequate labour strength in that province. Apart from Accra, Addah, Axim, Cape Coast Castle, Prampram, Winebah, Saltpond, Secondi must be mentioned above all. The chief harvest is from October to February.

Togo, the small German colony adjoining the British Gold Coast, has till now had only a yearly yield of 250 tons in a variety resembling Accra. The excellent beans prepared on the plantations fetch several shillings a cwt. more than Accra, whilst the deliveries of the natives rank below the current specimens of this sort. Its port is Lome.

Lagos, the British Colony bordering on Dahomey and east of the Gold Coast, is watered by the Niger and possesses cacao exporting ports in Lagos, Bonni and Old Calabar, and exports about 4,000 tons of a sort resembling Accra, but nevertheless not so well prepared and so of inferior value.

The cacao plantations of the Lagos colony—more properly known as Southern Nigeria—lie on either side of the great Niger delta, in low lying land where the climatic and geological conditions are quite different from those in the neighbouring German possession of

Kameroon, in which country steep slopes and the narrow coastal strip at the foot of the Kameroon range, lofty mountains, perhaps 13,000 ft. high, constitute the cacao cultivating region. Consequently the same variety of seed, the Forastero, here produces a different kind of fruit. The Kameroon bean has its own peculiar characteristics; although there is some resemblance to that produced on the opposite islands of Fernando Po, Principe, and St. Thomas; and the milder sorts from the “Victoria” and “Moliwa” plantations often do duty as a substitute for the latter variety. There is no other bean which contains so much acid as the Kameroon, and although this statement must be modified in view of improvements in recent years, the fact prevents the largest of German colonial sorts from serving as any other than a mixing variety.

Cultivation is the rule throughout Kameroon, with the exception of Doula, and the produce of the separate plantations, such as Victoria, Bibundi, and Moliwe, Bimbia, Debundscha and so forth, all of which belong to large Berlin and Hamburg companies, is influenced and differentiated by variations in the technique of preparation. There are smooth beans with blackish-brown shells, and others of a red-brown hue and shrivelled, some with traces of fruit pulp, and others again quite light-coloured, with occasional black specks resulting from a too thorough drying.

The chief gathering begins in September and ends in January. Exportation began in the year 1899 with 5 cwts. The produce in 1898 figured at 200 tons and it had in the year 1910 grown to 3,500 tons. Germany is of course the principal consumer, although England has since 1909 bought very much Kameroon cacao as St. Thomas.

Kongo is a bean resembling the finer St. Thomas, but smaller and often smoky. It comes on the market via Antwerp. Up to the present French Congo has only produced a few thousand hundredweights yearly, but the Belgian Congo Free State has managed to achieve an annual output of 900 tons towards the close of the last decade; and when this country takes the Gold Coast as model, perhaps Congo cacao will one day play an important rôle in the world of commerce.

St. Thomas, the small Portuguese island lying in the Gulf of Guinea, and almost on the Equator, produces a sort which enjoys immense popularity, and especially in Germany, which traces a fourth part of its consumption back to this island. The export figures are

1889	2,000 tons.
1894	6,000 tons.
1899	11,500 tons.
1904	18,000 tons.
1910	38,000 tons.

These are estimates which make the Portuguese planter worthy of all respect. It is true that “Black ivory” has been utilised on a large scale, the exploiting of black labour having resulted in a boycotting of these St. Thomas sorts on the part of some English manufacturers, but less on account of harsh treatment on the plantations themselves as the manner of recruiting in Angola.

Fine Thomas is the description of those sorts which have been used in an unmixed condition owing to their indigestibility, but properly gathered and fermented. The inferior and slightly damaged cacaos picked out from these are called by the Portuguese planter “Escolas”, or assorted. Yet they do not come into commerce under this designation, being mostly used for making up sample collections which illustrate the difference between these and Fine Thomas. The latter is traded through Lisbon “On Approval of Sample

All the St. Thomas cacao trade passes through Lisbon; for the tariff regulations of the Portuguese government make direct connection between the island and the consuming land practically impossible. France indeed chooses the route via Madeira, unloading and reloading, to avoid the additional duties. The cacao is at Lisbon stored in the two great Custom-houses there, and prepared for despatch to the respective lands. Fine St. Thomas is reshipped in the original sacks.

The samples are offered under various marks, either the initials of the planter or the name of a plantation. We mention a few of the best known; U. B., D. V., R. O., “M. Valle Flor”, “Boa Entrada”, “Monte Café”, “Santa Catarina”, “Pinheira”, “Agua Izé”, “Colonia Acoriana”, “Queluz”, “Gue Gue”, “Rosema”, “Pedroma”, “Monte Macaco

The beans vary, as far as shell and kernel are concerned, according to the mode of preparation on the plantations and the structure of the soil from which they spring. Many which were formerly universally esteemed are now no longer preferred because the soil in the meantime has been worked out; and many are now described under different marks. Yet particular characteristics still continue; there are mild and strong sorts, smooth and shrivelled varieties which look as though they have been washed, and others black like the Cameroon bean. All are offered as Fine Thomas, and enjoy an immense popularity.

Good medium Thomas is the commercial designation of those cacaos hailing from small plantations which have undergone a scarcely sufficient preparation owing to the lack of proper apparatus, and which are always interspersed with black or sham beans. In so far as these are delivered from large plantations, they generally owe their origin to overripe fruit, probably overlooked in the gathering season; or fruits bitten by the rats which infest this island may also contribute such beans. Almost all these inferior cacaos are sorted in the Lisbon custom-houses, and thinned down to the quality “Medium Thomas” free from objection or “Good Medium Thomas The two months of the Summer harvest, July and August, supply a somewhat better variety of cacao, known in commerce as “Pajol”, i.e. literally, “Hailing from the country”, which generally fetches a rather higher price. During the Winter harvest from November to February the medium St. Thomas varieties come on the market, but not before the beginning of the year, as previous to that point of time only the regular harvest of Fine St. Thomas comes into consideration. All attempts on the part of consumers to effect an improvement in the quality of the medium varieties have unfortunately hitherto proved abortive, for they are regarded as by-produce on the larger estates, and the small ones do not possess the apparatus necessary for a thorough preparation. Then again it is seen that these inferior sorts are taken off the market at very reasonable prices.

Fernando Po, a mountainous island, situated immediately off Cameroon, may be regarded as a source of supply for the Motherland, Spain, and only as such, for its yearly output of 2500 tons need fear no competition, thanks to the excessive tariffs laid on the produce of other lands here. The qualities here are inferior to those from St. Thomas and Cameroon, chiefly because most plantation are in the hands of blacks and consequently not well managed.

German East Africa, Madagascar, Mayotta (Comoren) and Réunion with their dwarfish yield are only worthy of passing mention.