Unit testing private methods in Akka

I'm new to akka and I'm trying akka on java. I'd like to understand unit testing of business logic within actors. I read documentation and the only example of isolated business logic within actor is:

static class MyActor extends UntypedActor {
  public void onReceive(Object o) throws Exception {
    if (o.equals("say42")) {
      getSender().tell(42, getSelf());
    } else if (o instanceof Exception) {
      throw (Exception) o;
    }
  }
  public boolean testMe() { return true; }
}

@Test
public void demonstrateTestActorRef() {
  final Props props = Props.create(MyActor.class);
  final TestActorRef<MyActor> ref = TestActorRef.create(system, props, "testA");
  final MyActor actor = ref.underlyingActor();
  assertTrue(actor.testMe());
}

While this is simple, it implies that the method I want to test is public. However, considering actors should communicate only via messages, my understanding that there is no reason to have public methods, so I'd made my method private. Like in example below:

public class LogRowParser extends AbstractActor {
    private final Logger logger = LoggerFactory.getLogger(LogRowParser.class);

    public LogRowParser() {
        receive(ReceiveBuilder.
                        match(LogRow.class, lr -> {                                
                            ParsedLog log = parse(lr.rowText);
                            final ActorRef logWriter = getContext().actorOf(Props.create(LogWriter.class));
                            logWriter.tell(log, self());
                        }).
                        matchAny(o -> logger.info("Unknown message")).build()
        );
    }

    private ParsedLog parse(String rowText) {
        // Log parsing logic
    }
}

So to test method parse I either:

1. need it to make package-private


2. Or test actor's public interface, i.e. that next actor LogWriter received correct parsed message from my actor LogRowParser

My questions:

1. Are there any downsides on option #1? Assuming that actors communicating only via messages, encapsulation and clean open interfaces are less important?


2. In case if I try to use option #2, is there a way to catch messages sent from actor in test downstream (testing LogRowParser and catching in LogWriter)? I reviewed various examples on JavaTestKit but all of them are catching messages that are responses back to sender and none that would show how to intercept the message send to new actor.


3. Is there another option that I'm missing?

Thanks!