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How to Make Iced Mocha Coffee? Are Homemade Starbucks Mochas Better Than Store-Bought?

Published: 2026-01-27 Author: FrontStreet Coffee

Last Updated: 2026/01/27, Professional coffee knowledge sharing: For more coffee bean information, please follow Coffee Workshop (WeChat public account: cafe_style). Among coffee enthusiasts who prefer single-origin coffee, Mocha coffee represents the original Arabica coffee beans exported from Yemen or the Mocha variety coffee produced in the Harar region of Ethiopia.

Recently, more friends have been visiting FrontStreet Coffee's store to ask about mocha coffee. Unfortunately, mocha coffee has been removed from FrontStreet Coffee's menu, so these friends have been turned away one after another. "Since you can't buy it outside, why not make it yourself?" Most friends embrace this philosophy and return home to make their own mocha coffee.

Unexpectedly, the mocha coffee they make doesn't quite meet their expectations—either the chocolate flavor isn't rich enough, or there's flavor but it's overwhelmingly sweet. So they contacted FrontStreet Coffee through our backend, wanting a secret recipe for making mocha coffee.

Today's mocha coffee refers to an Italian milk coffee with chocolate added, mimicking the rich chocolate-flavored mocha coffee originally from Yemen (for details, you can refer to "What is Mocha Coffee?"). Most mocha coffees use chocolate sauce for preparation because it's convenient and quick—no need to wait for chocolate to melt before using it! However, it's important to know that while chocolate sauce is convenient, it's also the key reason why most friends can't make good mocha coffee.

Because chocolate naturally has a very rich bitter taste, most popular chocolate sauce products on the market add large amounts of sugar during production to balance out the bitterness and make it more palatable. But since sugar and chocolate are already fused together, we cannot separate them or adjust the ratio individually. This leads to a situation where if the chocolate flavor isn't strong enough and you choose to add more chocolate sauce, although the chocolate flavor will increase, the sweetness will also surge dramatically.

Therefore, most coffee shops don't just use chocolate sauce to make mocha coffee; they also add other "seasonings" to make mocha coffee smooth and enjoyable (not bitter) while maintaining its essence (chocolate flavor). Many friends, being new to this, haven't recognized the drawbacks of chocolate sauce, so they only use chocolate sauce when making mocha coffee! No worries—next, FrontStreet Coffee will share how to make a delicious mocha coffee!

How should delicious mocha coffee be made?

As mentioned earlier, mocha coffee is simply a chocolate-flavored Italian milk coffee. So what we need to do is very simple: ensure a milk coffee has enough chocolate concentration (flavor) while keeping the sugar proportion not too high—just enough to balance the bitterness!

Similarly, we will still use chocolate sauce to make mocha coffee because its sweetness and chocolate blend more naturally, making it less jarring to drink. However, in addition to chocolate sauce, FrontStreet Coffee will also use other ingredients to increase chocolate concentration, namely: unsweetened cocoa powder.

Unsweetened cocoa powder not only brings a richer flavor to coffee but also significantly enhances the body, and because it contains no sugar, it doesn't increase sweetness. Therefore, it's the perfect choice for enhancing chocolate concentration (melted dark chocolate would also work, but involves more steps and takes longer). Alright, without further ado, let's start making delicious mocha!

How to make hot mocha coffee?

Since there are slight differences in making hot and iced mocha, FrontStreet Coffee will introduce them separately! The items and ingredients needed for making hot mocha are: 1 coffee cup, 1 mixing cup/bowl (optional), 1 strainer (optional), 1 portion of milk, 1 portion of espresso, chocolate sauce, and cocoa powder.

Step 1: Make the chocolate espresso base

First, let's make the chocolate espresso base! Add 15ml of chocolate sauce (DaVinci brand) and 5g of unsweetened cocoa powder (Valrhona brand) to the mixing cup. After multiple tests by FrontStreet Coffee, we found that chocolate paste made with this ratio not only has suitable sweetness but also an extremely rich chocolate flavor! Of course, friends who prefer sweetness can slightly increase the chocolate sauce to 20ml.

Next, we extract a shot of espresso into the mixing cup, using the heat from the espresso combined with stirring to melt and blend the chocolate sauce and cocoa powder. (Today FrontStreet Coffee used extraction parameters: 19.8g of coffee grounds, extracted in 28 seconds to yield 38ml of liquid!)

Step 2: Filter undissolved cocoa powder

After stirring, we can pour it into the latte cup! It's best to use a strainer when pouring to filter out any undissolved chocolate powder, as they tend to clump together into larger pieces. After filtering, the drinking experience will be smoother! (This is why we need two cups—if you don't plan to filter, you can actually make it directly in the latte cup)

Step 3: Sprinkle a small amount of cocoa powder on the surface

If you have a sieve, you can use it to sprinkle some cocoa powder on the surface of this chocolate espresso base. This will make the finished mocha coffee emit a more tempting chocolate aroma. (You can also skip this step)

Step 4: Froth the milk

Just like making a hot latte, the milk for hot mocha also needs to be frothed to 65°C to activate the sweetness of lactose. Meanwhile, the presence of foam will make the texture more velvety. Therefore, in the milk frothing step, the process is completely consistent with latte! Froth to 60-68°C with thin foam.

The ratio of milk to coffee is 1:4, meaning 50ml of base should be paired with 200ml of milk.

Step 5: Combine

After frothing is complete, we can start combining! Friends who want to latte art should note that because this base is quite thick, its flowability isn't high at the beginning. We need to use more milk to combine and increase the surface flowability, which will allow for better-looking latte art! (It's worth mentioning that mocha is actually easier to create patterns on than latte)

At this point, a delicious mocha coffee is complete! Not only does it offer a great visual experience, but the taste is also extremely pleasant. The rich, sweet chocolate paired with the whiskey aroma, butter cookie notes from the Warm Sun blend—it's just like a liqueur-filled chocolate! And because of the presence of red cherries, there's a subtle berry aroma, making the layers incredibly rich!!!

How to make iced mocha coffee?

For iced mocha, since we need to use ice to cool it down, we sacrifice some milk for ice replacement. When the ice melts, it dilutes the overall concentration, making the taste feel thinner. Therefore, in the chocolate base ingredients, we need to make adjustments—increasing the original 15ml of chocolate sauce to 20ml, and unsweetened cocoa powder from the original 5g to 8g, to correct the texture by enhancing chocolate concentration!

The production process for the chocolate coffee base is the same as for hot mocha. The remaining step is simply to combine all the ingredients! Add ice (90g) and milk (160ml) sequentially to the prepared cup, and finally drizzle the chocolate coffee base on top, and you're done!

Remember to stir before drinking to better mix the milk and chocolate coffee! If conditions allow, we can also add cream, milk foam, or other ingredients to the surface to give the iced mocha coffee more layers and double the deliciousness!