Chocolate a la taza, anyone?

Antonio Pueo, the leading chocolate tablea brand in the country, is soon going places with Philippine Airlines serving its instant Spanish chocolate a la taza in transatlantic flights beginning this month. The drink will be served hot or cold by PAL.

Too, Mars Inc. of USA (manufacturers of M&Ms and other leading brands of chocolate candies) and Nestle of Malaysia have made supply inquiries with Patricia Limpe, general manager of Antonio Pueo Incorporada which she rejected because his antiquated factory can not even cope with the local demand for tableas, Limpe said.

On its own, Antonio Pueo tableas has been dominating the local cocoa market for Spanish chocolate — which though highly seasonal (usually during Christmas and New Year festivities) has developed a year-round elite patronage through the years.

Limpe’s grandfather was a friend of Pueo’s father, Jose Maria Pueo who brought the Spanish chocolate technology in 1939 becoming the first chocolate makers for the friars of Intramuros, Limpe recalled. Eventually, the son, Antonio, took over and formulated the tablea and designed the original factory (now being used by the company) for making tableas.

Tablea is made up of 50 percent cacao and 50 percent coco fats. In its natural form, cacao is acidic but "our factory alkalizes it during the processing and it becomes chocolate with fats (more commonly known as mantekilya de cacao)," Limpe said.

From tableas, the Antonio Pueo factory is able to produce other products like instant chocolate mixes for dispensers and coffee shops; pastry mixes; a dip for churros (which Antonio Pueo Incorporada also formulated on its own); and its most recent entries in trade fairs of the DTI "the instant double chocolate champorado and double chocolate oatmeal."

The factory is in Balintawak, Quezon City (although this is the fourth site since the original factory in Intramuros).

Antonio Pueo tableas come in two types of packaging: gold which is more pricey because it has less sugar and white, which is good for budget conscious housewives.

At the 2005 Cocoa Flavanols Meeting in Lucerne, Switzerland last July, researches on the beneficial effects of cacao in human health have been discussed extensively.

Dr. Carl Keen (PhD), a nutritionist and internal medicine specialist from the University of California, Davis, talked about specific compound in cacao with aspirin-like effect (of reduced platelet aggregation) of cocoa flavanols which could have major impact on the pharmaceutical industry.

Another presenter, Dr. Ian MacDonald (PhD physiology from the University of Nottingham, UK and Dr. Naomi Fisher (MD, assistant professor of Harvard Medical School and Director of Hypertension of Brigham & Women’s Hospital in Boston) discussed a blind study of 60 people where cocoa flavanols increased blood flow in key areas of the brain thereby having beneficial impact on vascular improvements among elderly dementia and stroke patients.

Limpe said contrary to general belief about chocolate causing obesity or uncontrolled weight gain, "this is not true because cocoa is an antioxidant that helps clean the body of impurities and free radicals. It is the sugar that causes weight gain."

She said her researches at the Smithsonian Institute also showed that cocoa is good for preventing tuberculosis, high blood pressure, low blood, strokes and anemia.