Mexican hot chocolate is a spicy drink made with chocolate, cinnamon, chili, anise, and other spices. Traditional versions are bitter and granular, while modern versions are sweetened with sugar and made with milk. The combination of chiles and chocolate is popular in Mexican cuisine.
Mexican hot chocolate is the generic name for a spicy chocolate drink made with chocolate, vanilla, cinnamon, chili, anise, and other spices, depending on the region of Mexico where it is made. In other parts of the world, it is often made with Mexican chocolate, a mix of bitter and granular solid chocolate designed to be melted and mixed with milk or water to make Mexican hot chocolate. When early European explorers were introduced to chocolate, it came in the form of Aztec hot chocolate, which would be unrecognizable to most modern hot chocolate consumers. Explorers brought back samples of cocoa beans, the raw product used to make hot chocolate, and in Europe other spices were added, along with cream and sugar.
The scientific name for the cocoa plant is Theobroma cacao. Cacao comes from a Nahuatl word, xocolatl and theobroma meaning “food of the gods,” a reference to chocolate’s sacred place in Central American culture and presumably delicious flavor, which captivated Europeans when it was discovered.
Traditional Mexican hot chocolate as it would have been drunk by the Aztecs is made by grinding cocoa beans with cinnamon, anise, chiles and vanilla pods. Some other regions of Mexico add spices such as cardamom to the mixture, which is foamed in hot water with a molinillo or chocolate whisk. The result is a bitter, granular drink, which is also quite thick and intense. Another version, champurrado, is sweetened with piloncillo, an unrefined raw cane sugar used in Mexico and thickened with ground corn.
In Oaxaca, chocolate appears in a cold drink, Tejate, which uses dark chocolate, cocoa blossoms, and thick corn masa. The drink is allowed to sit and marinate before being frothed and served cold over ice, though some restaurants offer Oaxacan hot chocolate, using the same ingredients. Some modern cafes have reinterpreted Tejate, making iced chocolate drinks fermented with exotic ingredients like green tea for an interesting and refreshing flavor.
In most parts of the world outside of Mexico, Mexican hot chocolate is made with milk rather than water and sweetened with sugar. Many packaged Mexican chocolate products actually include piloncillo beans to satisfy a sweet tooth when sold outside of Mexico. At home, Mexican chocolate can be melted and mixed with a liquid to create a version of Mexican hot chocolate that some consumers like to enhance by adding chiles, cinnamon, and other spices.
For people unfamiliar with the concoction of chiles and chocolate, the idea of traditional Mexican hot chocolate might seem a little off-putting. However, the fiery chiles, bitter chocolate, and sweet sugar interact in the mouth to create an interesting texture and flavor experience. The concept of chiles and chocolate also appears in mole and other Mexican dishes. This would suggest that the combination is very familiar and popular in Mexican cuisine.
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