What is Mocha Coffee? What Does the Most Authentic Mocha Coffee Taste Like?

The Difference Between Pour-Over Mocha and Espresso Mocha - Mocha Coffee Flavor and Characteristics

You've probably often heard of mocha coffee, but most people think mocha is simply coffee + milk + chocolate. However, the most authentic mocha coffee is actually quite different from that ^^

What is Mocha Coffee?

The word "Mocha" has multiple meanings. Around 600 AD, coffee beans from Ethiopia began the world's coffee business in Yemen. Since the most important export port for Yemeni coffee in the early days was the port of Mocha (now long silted up), coffee produced in Yemen came to be called "Mocha" beans; over time, some people began using "Mocha" as a nickname for coffee, similar to how "Java" is used today.

Later, because mocha coffee's aftertaste resembles chocolate, beans with this characteristic also came to be collectively called mocha beans, such as Yemen Mocha beans, Harar Mocha beans, Tanzania Mocha beans, etc. Therefore, while all are called "Mocha," their meanings are quite different. Summarized as follows:

Mocha Beans: Currently refers to coffee beans with a chocolate-like aftertaste.

Mocha Pot: Invented and popularized by the Italian company Bialetti. Using "Mocha" as a trademark is quite casual and has little relationship with mocha beans.

Mocha Coffee: Early on referred to black coffee with a chocolate-like aftertaste, now has expanded to a mixed beverage of hot chocolate and coffee.

How Yemen Coffee is Named

There is still no universal standard for naming Yemen coffee, nor an official grading system. Local residents have their own classification system with hundreds of coffee codes and names for internal classification purposes, but these are not applicable to the commercial market (for export). In the commercial market, Yemen Mocha typically adopts one of the following two naming methods: "place of origin" or "variety name."

Yemen Mocha Mattari and Yemen Mocha San'ani use the "place of origin naming method," indicating production from Bani Matar province and the hillside areas near the capital San'a respectively; Yemen Mocha Ismaili uses the "variety name naming method," and its production area is located in Hirazi, southwest of Bani Matar.

FrontStreet Coffee's Roasting Recommendation

A coffee expert once said: "Yemen Mocha has too diverse flavors. Not only do different origins, varieties, and batches differ, but even every bag, or even every cup has a different flavor." Because of its complexity and variability, for coffee roasters, how to roast Yemen Mocha to bring out its best flavor is a great challenge!

Yemen Mocha beans, when lightly roasted, have brighter fruit acidity with fruit sweetness, spice, and chocolate flavors; when medium roasted, they have red berry, vanilla, cream, caramel, and chocolate flavors; while when darkly roasted, they have distinct chocolate, nut, and spice flavors. We chose medium roast for the roasting degree. Yemen Mocha belongs to green beans with relatively low moisture content, and considering the uneven size of the beans, the drop temperature for beans with low moisture content should not be too high. Moreover, early dehydration should be accelerated to retain moisture for first crack development of flavor and texture. Preheat for 30 seconds, open the air damper to 3, until the green beans turn light green or white, open the air damper to 4, and after first crack, open to 5 (maximum).

The caramelization reaction produces the best roast degree for nut, chocolate, and caramel flavors, and also balances the tricky acidity of mocha coffee to some extent. However, it's important to note that mocha has a full chocolate flavor, but over-roasting can easily produce rubbery flavors.

Roasting Profile:

Preheat the roaster to 170°C, drop beans in with air damper at 3. After 1 minute, adjust heat to 140°C, damper unchanged. Roast until 5'00'', temperature reaches 147.2°C, bean surface turns yellow, grassy smell completely disappears, dehydration complete. Adjust heat to 110°C, damper to 4.

At 8:00 minutes, ugly wrinkles and black spots appear on the bean surface, toast smell clearly changes to coffee aroma, which can be defined as the prelude to first crack. At this time, listen carefully for the sound of first crack. At 8'23'', first crack begins, reduce heat to 60°C, open damper fully (adjust heat very carefully, not too small to stop cracking sounds), drop at 197.9°C.

Brewing Parameters:

Filter: V60
Water Temperature: 92-93°C
Dose: 15g
Ratio: 1:15
Grind Size: Fine sugar size (sieve through #20 sieve to 78%)

First, pour 30g of water for a 30-second bloom, then pour 95g (scale shows around 125g), finishing in about 1 minute. When the water level drops to 2/3 of the coffee bed, pour the remaining 100g (scale shows around 225g), finishing in about 1 minute 35 seconds. Complete extraction at 2'10", remove the filter cup, and finish brewing.

Important Notice :

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Tel:020 38364473