Effect of maturity on some chemical components of cocoa

Abstract

Immature harvest of cocoa to prevent losses due to pests and pilferage is common in Sri Lanka. The effect of maturity on the levels of some components of the Amelonado variety of cocoa grown in Sri Lanka is reported here. The major problem posed by immature harvest is the loss of fats which has been shown in this study to be of the order of 50% when the crop is harvested 1.5 months early, although the fatty acid composition does not vary significantly during this period. The pulp of immature cocoa pods contains less free sugars and produces less ethanol on yeast fermentation than pulp of mature pods but the methanol content of the distillate is higher in immature pulp. The pectin content of the pod endocarp declines as maturation proceeds.

Developmental Variation of Sugars, Carboxylic Acids, Purine Alkaloids, Fatty Acids, and Endoproteinase Activity during Maturation of Theobroma cacao L. Seeds

“…This change is paralleled by a steep increase in the amount and proportion of stearic acid (18:0), most likely by increased acyltransferase activity. From 125 DAP onward, the fatty acid composition did not change anymore as previously described (9), and was about the same for both varieties. Fatty acid synthesis in cacao has not been studied so far, despite the uniqueness of cacao fat for making chocolate.…”

“…The morphological changes have been described (6), but only a few studies have dealt with the biochemical changes occurring during maturation. Essentially, these include work done on the accumulation of starch (7), the changes of proteins (8), the composition of ripening beans (9), the content of purine alkaloids (10), the changes in vicilin content (11), and the determination of peroxidase activity (12). Advanced stages of maturing seeds (between 105 and 160 days after pollination (DAP)) were analyzed in these studies, but their genetic origins frequently were not well defined.…”

Functional Foods and Their Implications for Health Promotion

“…These changes depend not only on the genetic background of the crop but also on factors as the geographic environment and the agronomical practices and have a direct influence on cocoa quality. (Bojacá et al, 2019;End & Dand, 2015;Hegmann et al, 2020;Niether et al, 2017;Packiyasothy et al, 1981;Rojas et al, 2020).…”

Identification, semi-quantification, and dynamics of volatile organic compounds during spontaneous fermentation of two cocoa varieties from northern Peru, using HS-SPME/GC-MS techniques

“…It should be mentioned that the NIST library also refers to dimethyl ether as wood ether. It could have also been due to the dehydration of methanol (Pelaez-Fernandez, 2016), which is a diluent of the internal standard 4-methylpyridine, or even produced during spontaneous fermentation (Packiyasothy et al, 1981), at some stage of sample preparation, forming the dimethyl ether. Furthermore, some ethers can be produced by the action of microorganisms (George & Häggblom, 2008) that, in this case, could be participating in the fermentation.…”