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Abstract
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Cocoa seeds were collected from La Isleta, La Vega de Santa Cruz and El Paraiso plots of criollo, forastero amazonico and trinitario cocoas in Cumboto (Aragua, Venezuela), and the cotyledons and seed coat+pulp were analysed for chemical characteristics.
The cotyledons presented
49.52-52.24% fat,
35.8-36.87% humidity,
13.59-13.97% proteins,
7.62-8.07% total sugars,
3.59-3.67% ashes,
2.90-3.24% reducing sugars,
0.68-0.80% tannins,
0.31-0.35% total acidity and
pH of 6.35-6.39.
Seed coat+pulp had
78.00-80.02% humidity,
4.27-4.31% proteins,
35.99-46.04% total sugars,
17.30-19.14% reducing sugars,
12.47-14.15°Brix,
0.84% tannins
3.39-3.41% total acidity and
pH of 3.45-3.56.
The values obtained did not differ among the three cocoa types, except for the cotyledon's fat which presented the lowest value in the forastero and the highest value in the trinitario as well as humidity and total sugars of the seed coat+pulp which presented the lowest percentage in the trinitario. Similarities in characteristics among the plots were also observed; in the cotyledon the only differences were in fat (P>0.05) of the cocoa from La Isleta (49.34%), proteins from El Paraiso (12.78%) which were the lowest and reducing sugars from La Isleta (3.39%) which had the highest value. In the seed coat+pulp, differences occurred in the pH which was superior in El Paraiso (3.71) and total acidity of La Isleta (3.85%) which was higher than that of El Paraiso (2.91%). In conclusion, the cocoas of the three plots from Cumboto, showed similar chemical characteristics, indicating that materials from the area are not pure, but are hybridized and that most characteristics have not been significantly affected by plot handling and locality. Therefore, it may be concluded that the chemical characteristics evaluated, except for fat content, are not good indicators for detecting differences between cocoa types. |