Pair Chocolate with Coffee this World Chocolate Day!
Hey, chocoholic, it’s me, Mocha – your favourite coffee and chocolate pairing!
Happy World Chocolate Day 2022!
You don’t need us to tell you that coffee and chocolate go together. Just take a sip of that lovely mocha – it’ll remind you that the coffee and chocolate combination is the BEST! Let’s dive in!
World Chocolate Day: what’s it all about?
World Chocolate Day. Sounds good, doesn’t it? A day when we’ll hear chocoholics all over the world rustling in the cupboards and slipping choccy bars out of shiny wrappers. A day when it is acceptable to have chocolate for breakfast and that naughty choc chip cookie is suddenly – whoop whoop! – a bit less naughty. It’s a time to go all Oompa Loompa with a new flavour or savour your favourite chocolatey staple.
Looking for some new World Chocolate Day ideas? How do chocolate and coffee sound? Pretty good, if the sweet loveliness of your mocha is anything to go by!
Whether you’re #teamwhitechoc or #teamdarkchoc, make sure you enjoy your favourite chocolatey treat on 7th July. Why is World Chocolate Day on this day? Because it was on 7th July 1550 that large amounts of cocoa were first brought to Europe. Seems like a good reason to celebrate, we’d say.
Why are chocolate and coffee best buddies?
What better way to mark the day than with your two favourite edibles/drinkables/loveables? Coffee and chocolate are a heaven-made match. They taste lovely, smell lovely and, together, create so much loveliness it’s unreal.
Coffee beans and cocoa beans look similar at first glance. However, their growing processes are quite different. Take their countries of origin, for instance: cocoa first came from the Amazon Basin in South America, while a goat herder first discovered coffee beans in Ethiopia. Apparently.
Bright red coffee cherries also grow in bunches on bush-like plants very different from the cocoa tree. Theobroma cacao is the sciency name for these trees, and they produce large cocoa pods, each with 30-40 cocoa beans snuggled inside. Compare this to the little coffee cherry, which keeps a jolly duo of two beans safe. You’ll also find white pulpy fruit on the inside of the cocoa pod. Looks deceive, because it’s surprisingly tasty – apparently it tastes a bit like jackfruit!
Roasting
The fermentation and drying processes for coffee and chocolate are pretty similar, but there are some key differences when it comes to roasting. Here at the roastery, we roast our speciality beans with finishing temperatures of around 205-215°C (? Feeling hot hot hot…). Cocoa beans call for slightly lower temperatures, usually somewhere between 120°C and 160°C. The cocoa roast also takes a little longer, while coffee roasting is a 15 or so minute process of perfection.
Just as with coffee, you’ll find fruity, floral light-roast chocolates as well as chocolates roasted for longer to give an intense, full-bodied flavour. Just bear in mind, though, that the meaning of ‘dark’ isn’t the same for chocolate and coffee. When we talk about dark chocolate, we are referring specifically to chocolate with a high cocoa percentage and no milk solids. Dark roast coffee, on the other hand, is coffee roasted for longer and at higher temperatures.
If you fancy learning more about the distinctions between coffee and chocolate, we’ve got a chock-a-block guide with everything you need to know! Check it out!
Why do chocolate and coffee go together?
Look at the flavour notes for coffee and chocolate, and you’ll see they are very similar. Coffee can be fruity, floral, acidic and, yep, chocolatey. A good quality chocolate bar is the same; it can have flavours of citrus, spice, berry, vanilla…. It might be smooth and mellow or intense and wine-like. Always gorgeous, though.
With tasting notes that look like twins, it makes sense that coffee and chocolate should go together. So, whether you’re dunking KitKats in your coffee (try it) or giving your dinner party dessert a mocha makeover, let’s find out the best coffee and chocolate combinations!
Coffee and Chocolate pairing
If you’re looking to pair coffee and chocolate like a pro, we’d recommend starting with similarities. Punchy dark chocolates will overpower gentle, sweet coffees, so marry your espresso with 70% dark chocolate and enjoy classic milk chocolate with an easy-drinking medium roast. Think about origin, too. If you have a Kenyan coffee with fresh berry notes, try pairing it with a fruity chocolate from Madagascar. Or perhaps you like our Like a Pig in Pyjamas Honduran coffee? Its velvety mouthfeel and toffee flavour are just super with the nutty taste of Venezuelan chocolate.
Or, let’s go all-in Willy Wonka and start experimenting. Think about the dark chocolate covered strawberry: fruity berry brightness with rich dark chocolate. Opposites, but it works. Try mixing up your coffee and chocolate pairing to discover something delicious!
Grab your apron and get baking!
We love baking with chocolate! Making brownies = licking melted chocolate from the spoon. Mixing up some cookies = nibbling the chocolate chunks before they make it to the dough. Nom nom nom.
Our online recipe file is crammed with choccy goodness. You’ll find lush coffee brownies (with a coffee drizzle, no less) and a mocha banana loaf that most definitely counts as breakfast. Our Iced White Mocha is also awesome for summer get-togethers. So much better than that big-name chain cafe…
Sending choco-lot of love your way this World Chocolate Day. And don’t worry if you’re short of coffee – our online shop is more jammed-packed than the best bar of fruit and nut!
Meet the chimp behind this article!
Head Chimp founded Two Chimps alongside Laura in 2016 after being self-employed from the age of 21. He caught the coffee bug from using an at-home roaster, and the rest is history!
What Andy does outside of the treehouse:
When the weather’s nice, Andy loves going on bike rides with his trusty sidekick, microchimp Felix (who always leads the way, of course). Andy also enjoys spending time tending to the family’s vegetable garden, and looking after their at-home farmyard, which includes a cat, two guinea pigs, and six chickens!
Andy says…
“I believe every day is a school day, and I’m always looking for opportunities to stick my head in a book and absorb new knowledge. I also love a problem to solve and fix – there’s no such thing as problems, only solutions.”
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