Hot Chocolate vs Hot Cocoa: Is There a Difference?

Cocoa is chocolate with the fat pressed out

Ground cacao beans are about half fat. US rules for chocolate liquor, the pure ground paste, require 50 to 60 percent cacao fat by weight. Before cocoa powder, a cup of chocolate was made from that rich paste.

In 1828 the van Houten family of Amsterdam patented a press that squeezed much of the butter out. Cornell University Library's chocolate exhibit credits Coenraad van Houten and says the press cut the fat from about 53 percent to about 27 percent, leaving a cake that could be ground into powder. He also treated the powder with alkaline salts so it mixed into liquid more easily, the process now called Dutching.

That powder is cocoa. Under the FDA's standards, breakfast cocoa must have at least 22 percent cacao fat, plain cocoa 10 to 22 percent, and lowfat cocoa less than 10 percent. USDA data puts ordinary unsweetened cocoa powder at 13.7 grams of fat per 100 grams, against 52.3 grams for unsweetened baking chocolate.

Hot chocolate is melted chocolate

When the cocoa butter stays in, the drink changes. Italy's best-known recipe site, GialloZafferano, makes cioccolata calda with 120 grams of 60 to 69 percent dark chocolate for two cups, plus cocoa and a spoon of cornstarch, and promises a dense drink. Our Italian cioccolata calda follows those proportions.

Run the numbers and the gap is wide. At USDA's 38.3 grams of fat per 100 grams of 60 to 69 percent chocolate, each Italian cup carries about 23 grams of cocoa butter from the chocolate alone. Hershey's can recipe uses 1/4 cup of cocoa (about 21.5 grams) for six servings, roughly half a gram of cocoa fat per mug. Our Parisian chocolat chaud sits on the chocolate side too: just milk and bittersweet chocolate, simmered until thick.

What Americans mean by hot chocolate

In everyday English the line is blurry. The Cambridge Dictionary defines hot chocolate as a hot drink of milk or water, powdered chocolate and sugar, which by the strict definition is cocoa. And in the US, Wikipedia's overview notes, the drink is best known in instant form, made from a packet.

Two American staples are built on powder. Hershey's still publishes a cocoa recipe that starts with its can of cocoa, sugar and a quart of milk, the cup in our classic American hot cocoa. Then came the packet. Military.com's history of Swiss Miss says Charles Sanna's family dairy business first sold a cocoa mix to airlines and restaurants, then in 1961 branded a version made with nonfat milk powder that needed only hot water. USDA lists cocoa mix powder at 4.0 grams of fat per 100 grams.

So which one is right?

Neither name is wrong; they describe two styles. If you want a light, sweet mug for marshmallows, cocoa powder is the classic American way. If you want something closer to a melted bar, start with chocolate. You can taste both, plus Mexico, Spain and Colombia, in our hot chocolate of the world collection.

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