The Latte Day 3: Caca Cocoa

Two steps forward, one step back…

…or if you want to be really particular: one step forward, one step back—since I really cannot have taken a step until I had crafted my first latte and not my zeroth. (If you don’t get this, I am sorry. Math.)

This whole three days of coffee making has made me realize one thing in particular—a latte is probably not worth $4. I definitely did not manufacture something of stellar quality, but it was still pretty easy and the ingredients I used cost somewhere around $0.24 (according to my handy-dandy excel spreadsheet pictured below). [RANT: also we as Americans do not measure normal things in pounds. ‘lb’ is a meaningless unit for most people because we measure force and not mass. We measure in pounds-force, abbreviated ‘lbf’. I am not kidding. Please unit correctly.]

Maybe you could make an argument that if they make fancy swirly hearts, then they should charge four bucks. Sure, but I have yet to see Starbucks, Tim Horton’s, AJ’s Café, or pretty much any major coffee shop make fancy swirls with the milk.

So what do we do with this knowledge of cheap lattes? Well we make lattes great again.

Unfortunately, I have not gotten to perfect my latte, but here is a quick comparison of previous days with today’s not-quite-as-good latte.

DAY 1: Supremely disappointing considering the amount of work that went into making the drink. The flavor was almost exactly masala (isn’t it funny how if you use the ingredients of masala to flavor your coffee, your coffee will taste like masala). It was watery and the coffee was not strong at all. The texture as a result was thin and more like water-milk (a.k.a. skim milk, although I didn’t like this as much as skim). I didn’t have a reference for the adjustments I made: sautéed coffee, cloves, and cardamom—so all the extra work was worthless.

DAY 2: Went back to the basics. Kept it simple. I wanted to see just where everything went wrong the day before. This was extremely sweet tasting though and the presentation was far from good. The coffee was also weak, but this probably came from using the French press rather than a fancy Aeropress. The texture was more like a real latte than day one, but the milk froth was not as silky as the pictures of $20 lattes on the web. The flavor was there, the presentable execution was not as much though.

DAY 3: A disappointment considering the improvement from day one to day two. This was more like flavorless liquid. This was not marketable whatsoever. It had too much cocoa and not enough silkiness or coffee-ness. I have had black bean water that has tasted better (thank you Schilcks). A failure in my culinary abilities. The froth was flat. The coffee tasted bad. The cocoa was not sweetened enough. This was definitely an overreaction to yesterday’s latte.

 

Latte Day 3: Caca Cocoa

• Latte-ness: 5/10
• Create-ability: 7/10 (I think I am honestly just getting better at this, so don’t trust my difficulty scale too much)
• Time: 15 minutes
• Flavor: black bean water was better tasting. Texture hit better marks, but not pleasant to drink. This is really all I think I need to say in this section. I wouldn’t recommend. Flavor alone got this latte a failing grade. Let us just say that if this latte wen to Hillsdale, it would be placed on academic probation.

Ingredients for Caca Cocoa

• 1/2 cup filtered water
• 2/3 cup milk
• 1 Tbl dark medium grind coffee
• 1/2 tsp sugar
• 1/4 tsp cocoa + a little for dusting as garnish

Necessary tools for Caca Cocoa

• French press
• 2 pots
• Liquids measuring cup (there is a difference between liquid measuring and dry measuring for all you single men)
• Fork or other stirring tool
• Mason jar with lid
• EXCEL 2016

How to make Caca Cocoa

Boil water. Add to coffee. Brew 10 minutes (remember stronger coffee was the goal). Move to the milk department. Pour milk. Add cocoa. Add Sugar. Add vanilla. Warm. Whisk. (Something feels familiar about all this…) Add the milk to the mason jar to get more milk froth and shake it—or twerk it—or whatever method you know to have your “milkshake bring all the boys to the yard … dam* right it is better than yours….” Move everything over to your coffee bowl and not a tea cup (apparently there is a huge distinction between the two that I missed that my girlfriend had to point out). Photograph in the name of blogdom. Create that excel spreadsheet. Drink. Or choke down depending on how dead your taste buds are.