Guilang's Tableya

Guilang’s Tableya has run out of Canbanua, Argao, since 1948, when Miguela and Pedro Lanutan — known locally as Guilang and Ingko Pedong — started the business to pay for their children’s schooling. The cacao comes from Mt. Lantoy farmers rather than a wholesale supplier, and Ingko Pedong spent the shop’s early years adjusting the roast — speed, timing, flame intensity — until the tablets carried a taste distinct from the rest of Argao’s tableya makers, which is still the difference locals point to today.

• Buy the stone-ground tablets for sikwate, Cebuano hot chocolate made thick with the cacao’s natural fat rather than stretched with milk powder.
• Ask to see the roasting and grinding process if a batch is running — the shop doesn’t hide production behind a retail counter.
• Tableya keeps for weeks unrefrigerated, which makes it one of the more practical Cebu souvenirs to carry home.

Explore More in Argao

• St. Michael the Archangel Church (Argao Church)
• Hinablon sa Cebu Weaving Site (Cebu Technological University, Argao Campus)