Illustration: CHOCOLATE CRUSHING MACHINE.
Chocolate and cocoa are made from the seeds or beans of the
_Theobroma Cacao_. The fruit of this plant somewhat resembles a
cucumber, and contains from twenty to thirty seeds; these are dried
and packed for the market. They come to this country from the West
Indies (Berbice and Demerara). The beans are roasted in an iron
cylinder with holes to let out the vapour, &c.; when cool they are
deprived of their husks, and then crushed by means of rollers turning
on a flat slab, kept warm by stoves or steam. The seeds when crushed
on the warm slab become almost liquid, owing to a kind of butter or
concrete oil which they contain, and which melts by a gentle heat.
When the seeds are rolled by the machine into a smooth paste, this
is either put into a mould of tin and formed into squares and various
other forms, or left rough as it is scraped from the slab (this
is called “rock” cocoa). For chocolate it is mixed with sugar, and
either dried and powdered, or made, as the cocoa, into paste. On the
Continent it is flavoured with “vanilla.”