Buko Loco

The food cart franchise has sprouted 1001 variants, and I recently came across the Buko Loco stand of the Fruitas group at the Paseo Center along Paseo de Roxas.  This franchise bottles buko juice in PET containers and keeps the bottles submerged in ice to prevent fermentation, a practice made common by Lipa buko juice a few years back.  This practice works for a few days, but the short shelf life has prompted some complaints from retailers.  I wasn't too happy with the bottle that I purchased at Buko Loco; while the juice was still potable, there was a certain acidity that diminished the enjoyment.  The ice-submersion technique has recently been supplanted by the newer technologies utilizing filtration and aseptic sealing.  There are pros and cons to the new techniques--while shelf life is considerably extended, my complaint is that sometimes the taste of the buko juice is altered during the process.  You simply can't have it all.