“Until some 200 years ago, cacao was consumed as a drink, says Jerome Penafort, director of business development for Benns Chocolate.
“When you are feeling stressed or sad, you feel good after eating chocolate as there are compounds in there that boost your levels of endorphins andserotonin. The same compounds are in our tea; it is a “feel-good” tea that can help you relax,” Penafort explains.
For Benns Chocolate, cacao tea (not to be confused with cocoa) is still a relatively new product; it was soft-launched at Food & Hotel Asia in April 2018. Their cacao tea is made of raw cacao nibs and husk — cacao nibs are the inner fruit of the cacao bean, the key raw ingredient used to make chocolate. When you brew it, you will see that it is slightly oily, but that is all natural. The cacao tea has a sweet perfume and a pleasant, mild taste of chocolate without the sugar.
“Drawing from this history, we wanted to create something that could retain all the superfood nutrients and still tastes as much as chocolate as possible. Of course, it is not as chocolatey as cocoa, but it is all natural and sugarfree,” says Penafort.
The company started out as a specialist in manufacturing quality chocolates with a focus on travel retail and local consumers. Along the way, they learned about the hardships faced by Asian farmers and also about a more natural and sustainable way to make chocolate, which sparked a new direction for the company.
“A big part of our company’s philosophy now is education: telling the untold story of chocolate. As such, we are looking at small batch production from each single origin plantation. Our general manager, Wilfred Ng, does most of the travelling out to remote farms in the region to source for cacao,” he shares.
As of today, they have partnered with farmers in Sungai Ruan (Malaysia), Vung Tau (Vietnam), Anaimalai Hills (India), Calinan (Philippines) and Lampang (Thailand), and they buy the cacao beans directly. Their single estate chocolates and cacao tea are all 100 percent natural, vegan, halal, glutenfree, dairy-free and nut-free. Penafort explains that going direct is more sustainable for farmers as they are able pay the farmers up to three times higher than market price by leaving the middle men out of the equation.
Pursuing their intent to study the antioxidant levels and health benefits of their cacao tea, Benns Chocolate has collaborated with UCSI University in Malaysia, and research has shown that both the Vung Tau (Vietnam) and Sungai Ruan (Malaysia) origin cacao teas have higher antioxidant levels than most regular teas, coffees and fruits. The Vung Tau Cacao Tea from Vietnam, for example, has close to three times the amount of antioxidants as apples and about 60 percent more antioxidants than strawberries.
“When blending the cacao tea, we are mindful of three things: flavour, antioxidant level, and aroma. The husk adds a lot of flavours to the tea, and has malt properties that give the tea a nice body and aroma, while the nibs give us the antioxidants. It took us some time to find the balance, coming up with the right ratio of husk to nibs and to achieve the maximum antioxidant count,” says Penafort.
