In craft chocolate circles, there is an ongoing debate over whether “two-ingredient” or “three-ingredient” bars are better. Two ingredient bars contain only sugar and cacao. Three ingredient bars add cocoa butter as the third ingredient. We find both types to be delicious, but what happens when you take a three-ingredient bar, trade the cacao for coffee and add a pinch of salt? Deliciousness in the form of a coffee chocolate bar, that’s what.
Our friends at Big Island Coffee Roasters in Puna, partnered with a local chocolate-maker to create a coffee chocolate bar. Roasty and creamy with a hint of salt, this bar trumps the many craft chocolate bars that simply add coffee to an existing chocolate recipe. By substituting the cacao for coffee, they create something very different. Cocoa butter melts at body temperature, thus providing the creamy mouth feel that is the perfect accompaniment to the complementary savory and sweet notes. Each bar contains the equivalent of about 4 shots of espresso, so there’s a nice buzziness to them. What’s more, you can add these bars to hot water or milk to make instant coffee.
A Sustainable Creation
Like cold brew, the coffee chocolate bar is not only tasty, but can reduce waste. Coffee beans that are left unused within a few weeks of roast risk being thrown away. Using these beans to make cold brew, which can keep for several weeks, is one way to stymie waste. Another way is to use these beans to make other products like coffee chocolate bars.
The coffee used in Big Island Coffee Roaster’s coffee bars comes from the famed Ka’u region of the Big Island. Unfortunately, the cocoa butter is not locally-sourced, but we’re hopeful that will change and that this coffee chocolate bar can be made with 100% Big Island-sourced ingredients.
Ok, so where can you get some? Well, the Big Island Coffee Roaster folks told us they can’t currently keep up with demand, so have begun taking pre-orders on their website. Believe us, it’s worth the wait.