While the oil of the chocolate-seed is perfectly wholesome, there are
some persons who find in the percentage natural to the seeds a too
large amount for easy digestion. The removal of a part of this, which
might with propriety be called an excess of the oil, was practised even
in very early days, as is seen in the cut herewith given, taken from an
old work on the subject. The present method of extracting the oil is
not essentially different, save in a few particulars, from that here
figured, and therefore need not be described in detail.
[Illustration]
The method of manufacture is substantially as follows: the ground
fragments of roasted seeds are subjected to pressure, and with the
result of withdrawing just as much oil as the manufacturers desire to
abstract. The pressed mass is, in the most successful process, treated
mechanically in such a manner as to divide and subdivide the minute
particles until they are capable of passing through a sieve having
several thousand meshes to the square inch. But such pulverization as
this would, under ordinary circumstances, reduce the mass to a dull
and unattractive powder. In the process devised by the firm of Walter
Baker and Co., this high degree of fineness is secured without any
loss of brilliancy in the powder,--the color being of the bright-red
which is not only attractive in appearance, but when conjoined with the
natural chocolate odor and flavor is characteristic of absolutely pure
cocoa of the highest grade.
It is instructive to compare such cocoa with the cocoas prepared by
what is known in chemical technology as the chemical process. The
latter are prepared by treatment with alkaline matters which act
on the coloring substances in the seeds, increasing the apparent
effect of hot water when the latter is added. In chemically prepared
cocoas, the exquisite natural odor and flavor of pure cocoa-seeds have
been diminished or wholly lost by the severe treatment to which the
materials have been subjected. In some cases the loss of the natural
flavor is sought to be partially supplied by the use of fragrant gums,
wholly foreign to the natural product.
The detection of these admixtures is generally easy. Comparison with
the well-known pure breakfast cocoa of Walter Baker and Co. will reveal
at once the vast superiority of a product which has not been treated
by chemicals, but which contains only the finest possible powder of
the best chocolate-seeds freed from the excess of oil. The exquisite
flavor and odor of the pure product are due wholly to the seeds
themselves, since absolutely no foreign matter is added from first to
last. Walter Baker and Co.’s breakfast cocoa can be used by students of
the microscope and of chemistry as a perfect type of the highest order
of excellence in manufacture. The enormous increase in consumption of
Baker’s cocoa and chocolate indicates that our discriminating public
appreciate a thoroughly good article when they see it.