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00:00:00was displayed to the
00:00:03outside, placing it towards the square, people who did not
00:00:07have coins at that time left cocoa, and
00:00:10it was with this cocoa that
00:00:13a large part of this beautiful and wonderful
00:00:16temple was built, and to be able to better appreciate the origin
00:00:19of cocoa in Mexico, enjoy its flavor,
00:00:23delve into the plantations, smell
00:00:26that perfume, discover the flavor of the
00:00:28fruit, with chocolate and talk with
00:00:32experts, I'm going to Tabasco where I invite
00:00:35you to enjoy this interesting
00:00:39trip, hello, how are you, chief, good morning, good
00:00:42morning, these are cocoa, right? These are cocoa, chief, how beautiful, how
00:00:46much do they cost? Well, we have them cheap at 15 pesos per cob, 15
00:00:49pesos, let's see which is the best, well, the best of the best,
00:00:53I have this one, I have this one, this one needs
00:00:58proud, fortunately, of what that well...
00:01:01in Trinitario, what is Trinitario and Forastero,
00:01:03Go ahead, this one is bigger, right? Okay, this one will be better, yes, let's see, I need you to
00:01:11cocoa subspecies is less is that they are making a differentiation between what break it, we break it, yes, yes, yes, wow, look at this
00:01:14beauty, you can try it, here are the
00:01:18cocoa
00:01:21diet to beans, and we just came to Tabasco to
00:01:25find this, it's a
00:01:28delight, they call it food of the
00:01:31gods, well, I'll take it, yes, okay,
00:01:54cocoas, which is generally what guys.
00:02:19Oh, with this heat and humidity, a pozol is wonderful, this cocoa for the pozol, for the pozol, gives flavor and smell,
00:02:23and this is the washed for
00:02:25chocolate, the
00:02:28they are doing it in the way washed.
00:02:46We are here in the impressive, majestic La Venta
00:02:49Museum Park in the state of Tabasco in the city of
00:02:52Villahermosa where
00:02:55same species as pepper, this was in the homeland of cocoa and the cradle of
00:02:56chocolate is found.
00:03:01I love
00:03:04we work closely with that the fruit grows on the trunk, it doesn't grow on the branches, that's a
00:03:08difference compared to most plantations where it always grows on the
00:03:12leaves and as terminal points, this grows on the
00:03:15trunk, well, they are sprouting, exactly,
00:03:18what do you think, spectacular, I love it, I'm going to stay here to
00:03:22because the experts are really on plant, welcome, precisely Tabasco is the
00:03:26precursor of gastronomic routes.
00:03:30or agro-tourism routes with this cocoa
00:03:34product, since 2003 more or less, the
00:03:37cocoa to chocolate route was created, precisely
00:03:40trying to highlight this great asset that Tabasco has as the
00:03:44homeland of cocoa and chocolate, and this
00:03:47tourist route was built precisely in an effort to
00:03:51attract tourism to the routes themselves, to the haciendas themselves, to
00:03:54the cocoa plantations themselves and so that people would come to
00:03:58learn about the history, to... know the product, to know the
00:04:01by-products, to consume the Tabasco chocolate, which is an
00:04:05ancestral
00:04:05chocolate,
00:04:14flower, baby cocoa, child
00:04:17cocoa, young cocoa, adolescent, young
00:04:21cocoa, oh look, already the old
00:04:23yellow cocoa that we are going to see, which lasts 5
00:04:29field with the months.
00:05:01We are going to prepare a delicious
00:05:04chorote
00:05:08of everything and the chorote is similar to pozol
00:05:10but this one. this is boiled
00:05:14corn, we are going to beat it now, that's how it
00:05:18used to be, now there's the blender and all that, but
00:05:21before, that's why housewives always have their
00:05:25hands clean and with short nails
00:05:28and now you're going
00:05:36to also with my candy with its candy and
00:05:39now all the candies were sold
00:05:42yes they stayed
00:05:45they didn't leave me with monkey ear, they didn't
00:05:49leave me with coconut and
00:05:52pineapple
00:05:55there it goes, it changes completely the soap but
00:05:58equally rich, heavier, it tastes more like cocoa equally
00:06:02refreshing and it was a pleasure, we'll see you
00:06:06soon, no, for me it's a pleasure and thank you for visiting
00:06:09us.
00:06:27you can find a mixture of different types of
00:06:29cobs,
00:06:32this cocoa is a cocoa called Ceylon, which is a larger,
00:06:35heavier cocoa,
00:06:38we have other smaller creole cocoas.
00:06:42squash, we have golden
00:06:46melon-shaped cocoas that are more of the
00:06:49foreign type,
00:06:51our cocoa plantations are not commercially very
00:06:55productive plantations in the sense that we have to allow
00:06:58them to coexist with other types of endemic
00:07:01plants and endemic trees and logically
00:07:05that means that we have other types of trees, not just
00:07:08cocoa, so we manage this plantation as a cocoa
00:07:12ecosystem. biodiverse, so the protection of the ecosystem is very
00:07:16important because we also have animals, some of which are even in danger of
00:07:19extinction, here are the cocoa beans,
00:07:23okay, the first thing we have to do is
00:07:26peel them, peel them, that is,
00:07:28de-shell them, although you may not believe it, sometimes it seems like
00:07:32very little cocoa, but when it's
00:07:35prepared, nothing happens if a little
00:07:39peel goes in, because the peel is fiber, yes, it's
00:07:42perfectly edible, so I'm going to make you one, but I'm
00:07:46going to make it, you're going to design it, oh
00:07:49pepper, I'm going to design it quite Mexican, right, very very
00:07:52pre-Hispanic, this pepper they had, the pimento
00:07:56is native to this area, it is native, okay, in fact
00:08:00most peppers are native to Asia, but pimento is
00:08:04a totally different variety, it is not the
00:08:07the Caribbean islands and it was in
00:08:11Central America. I'm going to put a little sugar, if it is well
00:08:14used and in small quantities it becomes a complement to the intensity of
00:08:18the flavors,
00:08:19of course,
00:08:23we're going to pour it
00:08:26here start
00:08:29turning it, turn it, turn
00:08:32it,
00:08:41you go
00:08:48Obviously we have to stay longer, but look how the fat is emerging,
00:08:52now try your creation,
00:09:05the chocolate they put honey in, they also put vanilla in it and it
00:09:09was called atlaquetsali, a precious thing. The one that had
00:09:13peppers and dried chilies was called
00:09:16Chilcaca with chilies and peppers, dried chilies of
00:09:19different varieties, of course, and pimento, look how
00:09:23wonderful, you can make chocolate,
00:09:25thank you,
00:09:35we continue.
00:11:25our first guest, she is a great friend and a great
00:11:28connoisseur of chocolate, she makes
00:11:31delicious things and I am happy that she is here with
00:11:34us, she is the master chocolatier Alicia
00:11:37Olascuaga, welcome Alicia, please come in,
00:11:40thank you Joel, good morning, good morning everyone,
00:11:44delighted to be here, good that you could come because you have so many
00:11:47events, yes, no, but
00:11:51always my little gifts, the new collection, of course, with chocolate from
00:11:54Tabasco. which I don't know if you've had the opportunity to try
00:11:58lately, what good things they are really making, I am a
00:12:01defender of Mexican cocoas and well, what better than from Tabasco, we will
00:12:05try them in a moment, but tell me, in
00:12:08your experience, does the consumer demand Tabasco
00:12:12cocoa, Mexican cocoa, do they feel the differences
00:12:15or do they go more with African
00:12:19the market is full of, right? Yes, you see that
00:12:22fortunately, for a few years now, maybe a little
00:12:26more, consumers are becoming more selective
00:12:30and are indeed asking for Mexican
00:12:33chocolate, fortunately, also, the
00:12:37Mexican cocoa producers are doing a great job of
00:12:40reforesting, of having more and more exclusive
00:12:43products, more selective with great care in the cocoa
00:12:47percentages, great care in the organic aspect, in the palatability,
00:12:51they have made a great investment in equipment, apart
00:12:54from the culture itself, they are also supporting
00:12:58people, we are talking about practically
00:13:0236,000 families in round
00:13:04numbers, depend on cocoa, on the cocoa
00:13:08haciendas, this in Chiapas and Tabasco, Tabasco is the main
00:13:12producer of cocoa in Mexico, 60-something percent, Chiapas is catching
00:13:15up, but Chiapas like 30 and the rest are Oaxaca, it was lost,
00:13:19it's restarting I think, look Oaxaca, Veracruz
00:13:23and Guerrero.
00:13:30Yes, it doesn't represent anything yet, this, and I know that
00:13:32there is a tendency to consume cocoas of
00:13:35origin, whether from Ecuador, from Venezuela, from
00:13:39Mozambique, from Ghana,
00:13:42this
00:13:45kills the Mexican cocoa, the
00:13:48demand, no, not really, well, I'm going to tell you something,
00:13:51Mexico, besides being one of, well. it is a cocoa
00:13:55producer, but it is at a global level like
00:13:5913th, it is like in 13th place and
00:14:02the production it has does not exceed 27
00:14:06tons annually, however, consumption is like 130,
00:14:09so being very small, we do not supply, we
00:14:13cannot because a few years ago there
00:14:16was deforestation due to a fungus, but this
00:14:19has been being treated for a long time, also the
00:14:23processes are also improving now.
00:14:25I'll talk about how they are being made, which is very interesting, but the
00:14:29haciendas still do not have enough, there is still
00:14:32maximum capacity, yes, they require a lot of time and they require money and
00:14:36some are small minifundios, sometimes
00:14:39people were not very interested because when they have been
00:14:42inheriting them, it turns out that they are paid so little, that really
00:14:46a family cannot live on that if a fair
00:14:50price is not given, so one of the issues
00:14:53that arose not only in Mexico but throughout the
00:14:56world, the Africans are the same, no, they pay
00:15:00whatever and they sell much more, but it doesn't really
00:15:03give you enough to live, no child labor too, yes, also, well,
00:15:07large companies are taking great care of this and
00:15:09right now what we have is that this differentiation is what is
00:15:13allowing the market to grow, to
00:15:17be taken more into account and for consumers to also learn to distinguish
00:15:21to buy products by origin, no, so it's not
00:15:25only in Mexico and it's not that it kills one thing the other,
00:15:29but it depends on what you want it for, what are you going to
00:15:32do, I mean, as you know, we do a lot of pairings with
00:15:35wines and with other drinks,
00:16:08What are you doing to support them? There are more people like
00:16:11you, eh, just as there was a boom in chefs,
00:16:14there is a rebirth of master chocolatiers,
00:16:18there are more people who are interested in promoting
00:16:21our cocoa and taking it to the final consumer.
00:16:24Yes, totally, because it's not just cocoa, but it's all
00:16:28the gastronomy and all the culture, no. We are talking about
00:16:32the fact that we are increasingly
00:16:35we have, because we have excellent products, so what
00:16:39the cocoa growers and producers are doing
00:16:44is the industrial product, of large
00:16:47consumptions of products that do allow
00:16:51additions of other raw materials according to the law because the norm is now very
00:16:55specific, what is not chocolate, I mean what does not
00:16:58have cocoa liquor, cannot be called
00:17:01chocolate, that has been around for a very long time, but it does
00:17:04allow you to add a little bit of hydrogenated
00:17:08fat, obviously some sugar and other
00:17:12ingredients, this for a niche, the niche that is the treat,
00:17:15for example, no, that is needed and has to continue
00:17:19being, but then they are very selective with specific
00:17:22cocoas to have what is called
00:17:26fine aroma, which are the ones that go to the
00:17:30gourmet sector, to the sector of chefs and people who make this
00:17:34type of products in small volumes but who do it very
00:17:37one-on-one with the client. or who make pairings with
00:17:41different products because it is not only with wines, it is also with spirits and even
00:17:45pairings are already made with teas, with coffees, there is a wide
00:17:49variety, no revolution, there you have to be very selective and there is another
00:17:52market niche that is being exploited
00:17:56lately, which is the health
00:17:59market, in that you have other types of products, so
00:18:03they are differentiating them,
00:18:06that we like, because
00:18:10originally, why did we like Tabasco chocolate,
00:18:13because the granulometry was very high, so when you
00:18:17tasted it, it was not pleasant, no, and you compared it with an
00:18:20African chocolate or with a chocolate from elsewhere
00:18:23and this silkiness that is so
00:18:27rich and goes very well for when you accompany a
00:18:30liquor, a spirit, a wine, they didn't have it,
00:18:33but this needs money, obviously it needs a lot of
00:18:36equipment. now they are doing it, so they are
00:18:40delicious, that is, you can really
00:18:42enjoy it and they ask for it more and more, no, and it's the same
00:18:46thing that happens with wines, eh, it's more and more, we are improving in
00:18:49wines, now, now tell me, you talked about sweets and those that
00:18:53don't have any cocoa
00:18:56percentage and that they put chocolate on the label and that they cost
00:19:00less than 10 pesos, five, what's the difference,
00:19:03what does that sweet have? Well, look, you can no
00:19:06longer... chocolate, if it's not chocolate, you have to put chocolate
00:19:10flavor
00:19:12originally they have hydrogenated fats that are
00:19:16harmful to health, well yes, it's almost like
00:19:19saying butter and butter and margarine,
00:19:23no, so for some things it's
00:19:26good but not in large percentages, no, so
00:19:30it all depends on what you want to do, but for it to be a real
00:19:33chocolate, it has to be cocoa liquor
00:19:37and cocoa, I mean, when I go to the store and buy something
00:19:40relatively very cheap, I'm not putting
00:19:43cocoa in my mouth, no, impossible, no, and the same, for example, if you buy
00:19:47a white chocolate
00:19:50that in general terms could not be chocolate, it's just
00:19:54cocoa butter, this but if you buy a substitute that
00:19:57is, that's what substitutes are called, those that are made of
00:20:01vegetable fats, you can easily differentiate it, a
00:20:04white chocolate substitute is this color, that is,
00:20:07completely white like snow, a chocolate that has cocoa butter
00:20:11is an ivory color like the one you are seeing there,
00:20:14beige, another thing in a dark chocolate or a
00:20:17milk chocolate, if you take it in your hands, its
00:20:21melting point is very high, so this chocolate or well
00:20:24chocolate substitute will not melt in your hands,
00:20:27no, and if you mix it, you can mix it in a small
00:20:31percentage, not only for taste but also because
00:20:35the norm accepts it, no, eh and it accepts
00:20:38you to put other types of ingredients, well, because we also have to
00:20:42recognize that well, there is a wide
00:20:45market that does not have a very
00:20:49high purchasing power to buy a type of gourmet
00:20:52chocolates, no, that are differentiated by origin
00:20:56and by high cocoa content and all this, it's not just the
00:20:59cocoa content but also the process, no, we are talking
00:21:03about much higher prices and ingredients that you mix, but now this
00:21:06I would call it more fine confectionery,
00:21:09no, yes, bonbonery, but here I have
00:21:13bars that you also make, how much could these bars of
00:21:17different percentages compete with commercial bars
00:21:20that are in price, no, in price it is
00:21:23impossible, that is, in price it is definitely impossible for
00:21:27a real chocolate bar to compete with
00:21:30a candy that has, eh, yes, it would be necessary to
00:21:33make a great effort for the consumer to be able to pay for this, yes,
00:21:36totally, but fortunately, but it is something more
00:21:39healthy, more nutritious, yes, yes, ah, because the third part of the market
00:21:43right now that I was telling you, you are talking about health, that is, chocolate was once
00:21:47considered, and you bring up the point, this goes very well, it was a
00:21:51sweet such, now, eh, cocoa
00:21:54is declared as a superfood, because
00:21:57it has a large amount of nutrients and is very good,
00:22:01it is really very good for health, especially if you pass the
00:22:0470% cocoa, no, of course, and it is a great trend among
00:22:08vegans, no, it is a part of their
00:22:11maintain all the necessary nutrients
00:22:14that are needed, the nutrients necessary for the
00:22:17organism when leaving protein, yes. Of course, yes, totally,
00:22:21totally and also, eh, but you're talking about 75,
00:22:2580, even 90% which are the most expensive,
00:22:28no, the more cocoa, yes, yes, totally, eh,
00:22:32look, the percentage is a
00:22:35combination of cocoa butter and cocoa liquor, no,
00:22:38so you are not obligated to declare how much cocoa butter
00:22:42you have and how much cocoa liquor you have, it will give you
00:22:46textures and other properties, sometimes cocoa butter.
00:22:50its price is very high and large producers
00:22:53can play with this, as long as they maintain this
00:22:5675, 80 or whatever they declare on the label,
00:23:00but the manufacturers, some of them do
00:23:04tell you exactly what percentage is cocoa butter and
00:23:07what percentage is cocoa liquor, so with that
00:23:10you can manage fluidity, you can manage all your formulas
00:23:14for what you are going to use it for and even
00:23:17your nutritional values, no?
00:23:20Of course, and how do you see the market, how do you see the competition,
00:23:23you still don't distribute directly
00:23:26to supermarkets and these stores, you
00:23:30go more towards the sector of events, of
00:23:33groups that want to taste, do you see the possibility that one day we will have
00:23:37the consumption centers invaded by
00:23:40Swiss brands or Belgian brands or foreign brands,
00:23:44that there will be Mexican brands in these businesses, eh it's already starting, it's
00:23:47already starting, eh, we in particular don't, because as you know, besides
00:23:51being very small,
00:23:54the client and basically for corporate events and
00:23:58we do one-on-one things, no, to have this type
00:24:01of participation you do need an enormous
00:24:04industrial plant, a packaged
00:24:08like that, eh well totally automated, however,
00:24:12eh our suppliers are already putting
00:24:15bars on the market, eh bonbons are a
00:24:19little more difficult because also
00:24:22we don't like to use preservatives
00:24:26but we like everything to be as natural as possible, so
00:24:29we are used to thinking that chocolate doesn't go bad but it does go
00:24:33bad, also it oxidizes or the
00:24:36fillings if they are not well sealed then moisture can get in and well
00:24:39you can even have mold formation etcetera, of course
00:24:43and the solid ones last much longer but also
00:24:46the consumer wants to know what they are eating?
00:24:50Exactly and they want specific cocoas, so they come and
00:24:54look for you by a percentage, let
00:24:56me call our next guest, she is Laura
00:25:00Hernández, Master of Science and she is a great expert in
00:25:03cocoas, that's why we have her here today with us, welcome Laura,
00:25:07come in please, thank you, good afternoon, she
00:25:10is Alicia Olascuaga, master chocolatier,
00:25:14and we were talking about the problems we have had in the
00:25:19. that came and well, devastated
00:25:23the cocoa plantations, tell me how
00:25:26it has gone, how the planting has been recovering
00:25:29and well, raising the
00:25:33production level, yes, of course, it has been
00:25:36complicated due to the climatic issues that
00:25:40currently exist, unfortunately, if Mexico
00:25:43already has a production that is not
00:25:46so high due to this
00:25:49scarcity of information that exists, especially
00:25:53cultural, no, because there is not such a broad knowledge
00:25:58that the chocolate process entails and
00:26:01that... its movement to other
00:26:04countries and the return of this, eh already
00:26:08modified industrially, well,
00:26:11it lowers the quality of these
00:26:14chocolates, so well, it has been complicated,
00:26:18eh this fungus has affected quite a bit, we know that
00:26:21here in Mexico two species, two
00:26:25genres of Theobroma are produced, eh,
00:26:28we have what is Theobroma bicolor, yes, the bicolor
00:26:32which we call Pataste cocoa or white cocoa, that's how it
00:26:36is known, that's right, and we have the cross of these two subspecies that are known
00:26:40as Trinitario, which are the ones we produce the most here in
00:26:43Mexico, but Trinitario is a hybrid, that's right, it is
00:26:47the hybrid of what is the cocoa subspecies,
00:26:51okay, so practically we have Criollo and Trinitario, Trinitario and
00:26:54Forastero, we have all three, in Tabasco
00:26:58all three are planted, that's right, eh, however, the highest production is
00:27:04which are the ones most used for the chocolate industry, because they produce
00:27:07more, no, that's right, the tree of the
00:27:13strong, the cob is also less fleshy,
00:27:17that's right, however it has better characteristics, yes,
00:27:21of course, eh, it greatly reduces its bitterness due to the chemical characteristics, the
00:27:24chemical composition of the fruit, okay, and what
00:27:27is the government doing, is it promoting,
00:27:31is it giving support, because I saw in the areas of
00:27:34southeastern Mexico that the cocoa plantations were
00:27:38abandoned, they were changed to coffee plantations,
00:27:41that it was more profitable, it was understandable, but today
00:27:45what has happened, tell us, well yes,
00:27:48unfortunately there isn't really government support,
00:27:52eh, as you mentioned, the plantations have changed because
00:27:56it stops being really profitable for the government in terms of
00:27:59cocoa, and unfortunately we have many communities.
00:28:03that survive this, even not only Tabasco
00:28:06and Chiapas, but also what is the part of Guerrero, the Costa
00:28:10Chica and what is Oaxaca, is that they are paid a
00:28:13tiny price, not the small producers, and
00:28:17it happens in many industries that the final price to boutiques, to
00:28:21stores, is very high, but the producer is the one who is
00:28:24punished and is the one who is paid the lowest price at the level
00:28:28of industrialization, courses, training are being
00:28:32given support for state governments and it is no longer
00:28:35federal, no, there is no support because in fact
00:28:39unfortunately, eh, currently most of the
00:28:42communities that are dedicated to this cocoa production, well, they
00:28:46do it relying on wild trees, uh-huh,
00:28:50so the production generally cocoa blooms almost all
00:28:54year, mostly in the summer and
00:28:57autumn, and the production of the mature
00:29:00ear generally occurs in what is spring-summer, so those are like the months
00:29:04where most of the production can be done, unfortunately
00:29:08well, there isn't like this part of cultivating in people, being able
00:29:12to continue with the process of
00:29:14this cocoa, this cocoa, and how did you get interested
00:29:18in cocoa, how did you manage
00:29:21to become an expert in Mexico City,
00:29:25the farms, in the plantations, that's right, well, fortunately
00:29:28I had the opportunity to meet a gastronomist who comes from the
00:29:31coast. from Guerrero, and with him I start
00:29:35to get involved especially in this part of promoting the culture of
00:29:39buying what is made here in Mexico, not
00:29:41buying chocolate that has been made in an
00:29:45artisanal way, that's how I start to get involved with
00:29:49this community, eh, which is known as Ayutla de los
00:29:52Libres, oh look they commercialize what is
00:29:56cocoa, eh, however they don't have plantations,
00:29:59they survive from what is wild and what and what, what wild
00:30:03cocoa is there, there is foreign, definitely, I think
00:30:06we all have to do our part to encourage
00:30:10and increase cocoa consumption in Mexico and it has so many
00:30:14properties that's why we always invite a nutritionist
00:30:18to talk to us about the properties and benefits of our ingredients
00:30:22and once again and it's a pleasure to have
00:30:26Arlen here, Arlen Vidal, our guest
00:30:30nutritionist, good to see you all here. here hello,
00:30:33hello, well we are talking about this wonderful ingredient
00:30:37that I hope you like, you do like chocolate, don't you? oh yes, I love it, I
00:30:40love it and chocolate has many uses in Mexico it
00:30:44is consumed a lot because it is not only the sweet, the bonbon,
00:30:48confectionery it is used in drink which
00:30:51is how they used to use it, they drank it, they
00:30:54didn't make it that way and well
00:30:58it is also used in our moles.