Ingredients · Flavouring

Cocoa

Theobroma cacao · Malvaceae (mallow family)

Cocoa
Ground cacao with most of the cocoa butter pressed out — powder rather than pieces, and the thing that actually makes a cup taste of chocolate rather than of roasted beans. Four products carry it. Worth knowing: Dutch-process cocoa has been treated with an alkali, which makes it less acidic, darker and milder. Natural cocoa is sharper and fruitier. Which one is in a blend changes the cup noticeably and is rarely stated on a label.

What it’s like, and how to use it

The partPowder
KindFlavouring
CaffeineContains a little caffeine
Where it is fromIvory Coast, Ghana (production)
TasteDeep roasted chocolate, bittersweet; Dutch-processed is darker and milder, natural cocoa sharper and fruitier

How to use it

It does not dissolve readily in water — bloom it in a little hot liquid or fat first, or it will clump and sit on the surface. In a tea blend it tends to settle, so stir. Natural cocoa reacts with baking soda; Dutch-process does not, which matters in baking and not at all in a cup.

With food

Cream and milk. Chile. Orange and raspberry. Coffee. Cinnamon. Hazelnut and almond. Banana. Sea salt.

With spices

Chile and cinnamon. Cardamom. Vanilla. Nutmeg. Cayenne.

With tea

Rooibos. Black tea. Pu-erh. Matcha, in a mint-chocolate direction. Peppermint.

Its story

Where it comes from

See cacao — the same tree. World production in 2022 was 5.87 million tonnes, led by Ivory Coast at 38 per cent, then Ghana and Indonesia. Our lot names no origin and does not say whether it is natural or Dutch-processed.

What happened

Cacao was a drink for three thousand years before it was a bar, and the powder is a nineteenth-century invention: pressing the fat out of the ground bean is what made chocolate possible as a solid and cocoa possible as a powder. Theobroma cacao means food of the gods, and the beans themselves served as currency in Mesoamerica. The alkalising process that produces Dutch-process cocoa was developed in the Netherlands, which is where the name comes from.

On the shelf with it

Every product it goes into.

Every ingredient in the shop

Explore

Other ways in

Ingredients Every plant, seed, bark and salt in the shop on one page — what it is, why it is in the blend, and where it comes from. See them all Collections Every shelf in the shop on one page — teas by leaf and flavour, spices by kind and cuisine. Open any shelf to see what is on it. Browse the shelves The Showroom The whole shop on one floor — every tea, spice and blend, filtered by what you are after, with the basket beside you. Open the Showroom Elsewhere Seventeen short trips — a place, a moment, a feeling — each with the teas and spices that get you there. Take a trip