Hojicha Hot Chocolate
Hojicha Hot Chocolate.
The dessert in a cup.
Melted dark chocolate, hot milk and a full serve of roasted hojicha whisked straight in.
Where a coffee hot chocolate can taste a bit bitter and a bit burnt, the hojicha roast does something friendlier.
It cuts through the sweetness with a warm, nutty depth instead of a slap.
Hojicha Hot Chocolate Recipe
Makes one drink, 240ml cup
Hojicha: 3g Jeeves & Jericho Organic Hōjicha
Water: 30ml
Ingredients
3g Jeeves & Jericho Organic Hōjicha
30ml hot water at 80C
180ml milk of choice
20g dark chocolate, 70%, plus cocoa for dusting
Make the hojicha
Add 3g of Organic Hōjicha to your serving mug.
Pour over 30ml of hot water at 80C.
Whisk until completely smooth.
You are building the base directly in the mug this time, because the drink finishes there.
Build the drink
Heat the milk gently and melt the chocolate into it, whisking until it turns glossy.
Pour the chocolate milk over the hojicha base.
Dust with cocoa.
And that is it.
Two whisks and a pour.
Why does hojicha work with chocolate?
The same reason mocha works, but softer.
Roasted tea and roasted cocoa share a lot of flavour territory.
Hojicha brings toasted, nutty, caramel notes.
Dark chocolate brings the richness.
Together they taste deeper than either alone, and the tea keeps the drink from being pure sugar.
It is comforting without being a pudding with a spoon.
Which chocolate should I use?
Proper 70% dark chocolate, not powder.
Powder disappears into the milk and you lose the gloss.
Real chocolate melted into milk gives you that shiny, cafe standard finish.
The gloss is what makes it look worth four pounds fifty.
Is it late in the day friendly?
Yes.
Hojicha is naturally low in caffeine, which is one of its quiet superpowers.
A customer can order this at nine in the evening and sleep fine.
That makes it a rare thing on a cafe menu.
A dessert drink that sells late, needs no espresso machine and no alcohol licence.
Make it café ready
The chocolate milk can be batched and held warm, exactly like a hot chocolate base.
The hojicha whisks to order in seconds.
So your team builds the drink in under a minute, even at peak.
It also gives you an answer to the hardest question on any winter menu.
"What else have you got that is not coffee?"
This.
This is what you have got.
Make it your own
Add a drop of Spiced Chai Fusion to the milk and you have a chai spiced hojicha hot chocolate.
Use oat milk and it goes even creamier.
Top it with a little whisked hojicha foam instead of the cocoa dust.
Or serve it over ice in summer and nobody will complain.
Chocolate and roasted tea.
It should not be this good.
And yet.
Want it on your menu?
Open a trade account and we will send you the hōjicha to try it with.