Cocoa mocha
Cocoa powder and salt — no chocolate bar, no sugar
A mocha without the cocoa butter or the sugar. Sharper, thinner and far more bitter than the dessert version — closer to old-fashioned drinking chocolate than to a hot chocolate.
Ingredients
- cocoa powder, unsweetened, sifted5 g
- espresso, hot36 ml
- whole milk180 ml
- salt1 pinch
Method
Sift the cocoa into a warm cup
Unsifted cocoa forms lumps that never break up, and they will not dissolve later once the milk is in.
Paste it with the espresso
Pour a little of the hot shot on and work it smooth against the cup before adding the rest. Salt goes in now.
Texture the milk
Latte texture. With no cocoa butter there is no fat carrying the body, so the milk has to do it — do not over-aerate.
Pour, then one stir from the bottom
Cocoa is denser than a melted-chocolate ganache and settles. Stir up from the base once before drinking.
Notes
- Why it tastes sharper: a chocolate bar is roughly half cocoa butter and sugar. Remove both and what is left is cocoa solids, which is where the bitterness and the aroma live.
- Dutch-process cocoa is milder and darker, natural cocoa is more acidic and fruitier. Dutch is the easier choice when there is no sugar to round it off.
Made it? See how the pour actually looks.
Photograph this pour and Brew scores the symmetry, contrast and definition, and names the exact mistake to fix next time.
Score my pour →What you need
- Espresso machine (pump) or Lever / piston machine or Moka pot
- Steam wand or Handheld milk frother