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

Recently more friends have been visiting FrontStreet Coffee's store to ask about mocha coffee. Unfortunately, mocha has been taken off the menu, so one after another they have been turned away. "If you can't buy it outside, why not make it yourself?" Most of them take that view and go home to try their own.

What they end up with, though, doesn't quite meet their expectations - either the chocolate flavor isn't rich enough, or there is flavor but it is overwhelmingly sweet. So they wrote to FrontStreet Coffee through our back end, asking for a reliable mocha recipe.

Today's mocha is an Italian milk coffee with chocolate added, a nod to the rich chocolate-flavored mocha that originally came from Yemen. Most mochas are made with chocolate sauce because it is convenient and quick - no waiting for chocolate to melt. But that convenience is also the main reason so many people fail to make a good mocha.

Chocolate is naturally very bitter, so most popular chocolate sauce products add large amounts of sugar during production to balance the bitterness and make them more palatable. Because the sugar and chocolate are already fused together, you cannot separate them or adjust the ratio on your own. The result: if the chocolate flavor is too weak and you add more sauce, the chocolate does get stronger, but the sweetness surges just as fast.

That is why most coffee shops don't use chocolate sauce alone. They add other "seasonings" so the mocha is smooth and enjoyable - not bitter - while still tasting of chocolate. Many newcomers don't recognize the drawbacks of chocolate sauce and use nothing else. No worries: below, FrontStreet Coffee shares how to make a delicious mocha.

How Should Delicious Mocha Coffee Be Made?

As noted, mocha is simply a chocolate-flavored Italian milk coffee. So what we need to do is simple: give a milk coffee enough chocolate concentration while keeping the sugar proportion low enough only to balance the bitterness.

We will still use chocolate sauce, because its sweetness and chocolate blend more naturally and drink less harshly. But in addition to the sauce, FrontStreet Coffee uses another ingredient to raise the chocolate concentration: unsweetened cocoa powder.

Unsweetened cocoa powder brings a richer flavor to the coffee and significantly enhances the body, and because it contains no sugar, it does not increase sweetness. That makes it the perfect choice for boosting chocolate concentration (melted dark chocolate also works, but it takes more steps and more time). Without further ado, let's make a delicious mocha.

How to Make Hot Mocha Coffee

Because hot and iced mocha differ slightly, FrontStreet Coffee introduces them separately. For hot mocha you will need: 1 coffee cup, 1 mixing cup or 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, 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 many tests, FrontStreet Coffee found that a paste made at this ratio has both suitable sweetness and an extremely rich chocolate flavor. If you prefer it sweeter, you can raise the chocolate sauce slightly to 20ml.

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

Step 2: Filter Out Undissolved Cocoa Powder

Once stirred, pour it into the latte cup. It is best to pour through a strainer to catch any undissolved cocoa powder, which tends to clump into larger pieces. Filtering makes the drink smoother. (This is why two cups help - if you don't plan to filter, you can make it directly in the latte cup.)

Step 3: Dust the Surface with a Little Cocoa Powder

If you have a sieve, use it to sprinkle some cocoa powder over the surface of the chocolate espresso base. This makes the finished mocha give off a more tempting chocolate aroma. (You can also skip this step.)

Step 4: Froth the Milk

Just as with a hot latte, the milk for hot mocha needs to be frothed to 65°C to activate the sweetness of the lactose, and the foam makes the texture more velvety. The frothing step is therefore identical to a latte: froth to 60-68°C with a thin foam.

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

Step 5: Combine

Once frothing is done, it is time to combine. If you want to pour latte art, note that this base is quite thick and not very fluid at first. Use more milk to combine and increase the surface flow, which gives better-looking art. (It is worth mentioning that mocha is actually easier to pattern than a latte.)

At this point a delicious mocha is complete. It is a pleasure to look at and even better to drink: rich, sweet chocolate alongside the whiskey aroma and butter cookie notes of the Warm Sun blend, like a liqueur-filled chocolate. And because of the red cherries in it, there is a subtle berry aroma too, making the layers incredibly rich.

How to Make Iced Mocha Coffee

For iced mocha, since ice is used to cool the drink, we give up some milk in exchange for ice. As the ice melts it dilutes the overall concentration and the taste feels thinner. The chocolate base therefore needs adjusting: raise the chocolate sauce from the original 15ml to 20ml, and the unsweetened cocoa powder from 5g to 8g, correcting the texture by boosting chocolate concentration.

The production process for the chocolate coffee base is the same as for hot mocha. All that remains is to combine everything: add ice (90g) and milk (160ml) to the prepared cup in order, then drizzle the chocolate coffee base on top and it is done.

Remember to stir before drinking so the milk and chocolate coffee mix well. If conditions allow, you can also add cream, milk foam or other ingredients on the surface to give the iced mocha more layers and double the enjoyment.

FrontStreet Coffee Recommendation

A good mocha lives or dies on the espresso underneath, and for milk drinks FrontStreet Coffee always points to the espresso blends. FrontStreet Classic Blend is the first choice: designed specifically for espresso and moka pot, its biggest strength is outstanding crema - even a beginner on a non-professional home machine can pull a dense, fine crema. It uses the traditional Mamba blend recipe, full-bodied and mellow, easy for veterans and newcomers alike, and equally at home in a cafe or at home. If you want plenty of crema with a milk drink, FrontStreet Commercial Blend also contains a little Robusta, adding golden foam and pushing body and caramel aroma to the max.

For something rich and nutty, FrontStreet Premium Blend and FrontStreet Black Cocoa Blend are the best partners for milk. Because Brazilian coffee leads the recipe, they bring complex nut flavors - almond, walnut - to a latte, with a silky, mouth-coating texture. FrontStreet Coffee's Black Cocoa Blend uses 100% Arabica and stays generous with crema and full in body while keeping the price friendly, which makes it a sensible choice for anyone opening a cafe or simply watching costs. And if you want a fruitier, less bitter milk drink, FrontStreet Strawberry Candy is a fruit-forward espresso blend that recreates a vivid strawberry gummy sweetness, good for both everyday home drinking and cafe service.