Amazing! Attention Chocolate Lovers

Cafe Society
1

Not shilling, though I really would love sort of frequent recommenders deal …

I get all sorts of stuff advertising in my Facebook feed. In general I click not interested or whatnot to hide the advertiser, but I have found a couple that turned out to be a pleasing surprise.

Crio Bru is definitely one of these.

I have a liking for hot cocoa, and while I can do the usual thing of digging out the can of cocoa powder, the milk, the splenda and spending 15 minutes or so coddling out a mug of classic hot cocoa, then dealing with washing up. Most people can just grab a box of Swiss Miss or whatever brand they like, but being both diabetic and allergic to palm/tropical/coconut product - most hot cocoa drinks are loaded with sugar and palm oil … and are pretty much off limits to me.

So this ad popped into my feed … cocoa nibs roasted and ground like coffee. Wow. So I saw they had a couple trial size packages available, and a reasonable cost for what could end up being one of those occasional luxury things. So in went the order, and 2 cute little single pot trial size [well, pot and a half actually] arrived. 1 little bag starter kit - 4 oz each Ghana light roast and french roast.

We tried the light roast, following the brewing directions [we have a chemex] and it was fascinating. Plain unadulterated it was thin, coffeelike to drink. Flavorwise, it was a light delicate chocolate taste but without the hit of bitter that you get from dutch process cocoa, the alkali process gives it that bite. It does have a tiny bite, much like a coffee bite. I doped it with half and half, and about half the splenda I would use to that amount of coffee, and it was a light creamy chocoalte with a tiny kick at the end. Very pleasing. Something that would be excellent in front of a fire with a good book and a dog at ones feet/cat curled up in ones lap and some good music on. We did the french roast a couple days ago. Treated it the same. Again, same mouthfeel as coffee - but a heavier dark chocolate bar, like something in the 85% range. With half and half and splenda, it was amazing, deep, rich, chocolate and complex. Again, a tiny bite at the end but very highly enjoyable, sort of like the difference between a nice dinner and a 3 star Michelin Guide meal.

Very definitely going into our pantry Chez Aru - the 1.5 pound bag of each just arrived =) At some point, we will probably have a try of some of the varietals.

2

This sounds amazing. Have you tried adding some of this to coffee?

3

looks like there trying to bring back the original way people drank chocolate (it was pretty close to drinking coffee today) …If they get to making k-cups ill try some

4

Yum! Well, I’m ordering that. Thx.

5

For someone who’s not a salesman, you sure sold the shit outta that! :slight_smile:

Hell, I want to try it and I’m not even a hot cocoa fan!!

6

thanks?

I just really loved it - and with food allergies I have to be careful of reformulations, and this is a fantastic product that makes better hot cocoa than using the dutch process cocoa powder.

I also sort of wonder if it would work in a cold brew coffee extractor … or if it needs the heat.

7

They apparently do or did exist, but I’m not finding any right now.

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I’d like to share my incredibly easy hot cocoa recipe.

Put a heaping teaspoon of cocoa powder in the bottom of a mug (Cocoa powder heaps high, so that’s more than a tablespoon measured). Use whatever brand you like.

Add a rounded teaspoon of sugar (probably a bit under 2 teaspoons, measured. You could use splenda instead of sugar, or any other heat-stable sweetener of your preference.

stir the cocoa and sugar together.

Add a couple of Tablespoons of milk and stir into a slurry. The idea is to have little enough milk that you don’t get lumps of powder floating where you can’t smash them with the back of a spoon.

Slowly fill the mug with milk, while stirring the slurry into the milk.

Put in microwave on “high” for one minute. Remove from heat and give it a quick stir. Add a teaspoon of vanilla extract if desired.

Return to microwave and heat for a second minute. Stir it again and enjoy.

It takes me less than 5 minutes, including pulling out boxes and putting them away. And it only dirties one mug and one spoon.

I like my cocoa to be very chocolatey and not too sweet, but you can vary the ratio of ingredients to your taste. It’s actually easier to make with more sugar, because more sugar helps mix the cocoa powder with the milk. If you use all non-sugar sweeteners, it WILL be important to make that slurry and stir the rest of the milk in slowly. (Or, you can heat the milk first and then add cocoa powder, which is my husband’s recipe. I find that a little less reliable, but it’s easy, and he finds it works well enough.)

9

Couldn’t one just use the reusable K-cups?

The product sounds pretty interesting. Would someone who likes chocolate, but dislikes coffee, like it?

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I wrote to Crio Bru to find out the list of ingredients on the unflavored roast. I couldn’t see it on their website.

They wrote back immediately. And replied, “There is only one ingredient, ground cacao.” That sold me on the product. I am waiting for it to arrive.

11

I’m wondering if this would work with an espresso maker. I’m not seeing why it wouldn’t, but all I see on the website is a French press.

12

Thanks for the review. I’m a chocolate connoisseur / theobromine addict. I’ll have to give this a try.

I actually like Dutch-process cocoa and cannot tolerate coffee at all, so I’m not sure how I’ll like their process. My main concern is too much fat, which ruins the mouthfeel. Some brands (like Ghirardelli) leave too much fat in their cocoa. According to the Crio Bru FAQ page, almost all of the fat stays with the grounds. I’m skeptical, but I’ll see how it tastes.

Lately, I’ve been drinking an organic, Fair-Trade-certified Volupta-brand cacao powder from Costco. I used to get the store-branded cocoa, which is cheap and better quality than name brands. But this Volupta stuff obviously uses better quality beans, because it is much tastier. It’s still Dutch-process, though. I premix it with sucralose in a sealed bin, then I only need to scoop out some into a mug of hot water to get my daily cocoa drink.

13

Srsly.

Me too and me neither.

I’d like to try it but I don’t think I even have the equipment to prepare it.

14

You can buy it on Amazon, FYI. And a lot of their “starter kits” combine the cacao with french presses, so if you have $30 to burn, you can get it all in one package.

15

I assume you use a drip pot and sweeten after brewing?

Chocolate is very bitter. Anyone that’s used Hershey Cocoa Baking Powder knows it’s impossible to consume without a sweetener. I like hot chocolate a little bitter. I use less sweetener than a lot of people.

16

Because the fat stays in the grounds, it has a tendency to need to be hand dripped - if not careful you can overflow the machine drip mr coffees.

It is absolutely nothing like coffee - it is chocolate flavored liquid made from brewing it like coffee. If you want milk and sweetness to turn it into hot cocoa, you have to add it yourself. My odder roomie whisked it with some red pepper Mayan/Aztec style and enjoyed it that way.

Hope you enjoy it as much as we do =)

Not sure, the fat stays in the grounds so it may either screw up the pressurized dripping [or whatever you would call it] and overflow or work just fine.

All I can suggest is giving it a try =)

All you need absolutely is a mug and one of those cheap sit it on the top of a mug coffee pour over dripper things, some filters and some way of creating the hot water.

fair enough =)

17

Here’s a competitor: Choffy, which does carry the K-Cups.
And here’s a 3rd party review of each: Brewing Cocoa — Chocolate Alchemy

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A good article =)

19

Thank you aruvqan and Omar Little, this thread gave me a gift idea for my friend who is hard to buy for. He loves chocolate and has a long commute so this set with a thermal press mug seemed like something that might be nice for him, I just ordered it.

https://choffy.com/Choffy-Brewed-Chocolate--Tumbler-Press-and-12oz-Premium-Variety-Set_p_70.html

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That does look like a great gift idea for a chocolate lover =)