Mesoamerican-Style Cacao Drink with Chile and Annatto
Unsweetened chocolate melted into hot water with red annatto, ground chile, vanilla and a little honey, then poured from cup to cup until it wears a tall head of foam. A modern home version of the drink the Maya and Aztecs prized, not a reconstruction.
Long before chocolate was a candy, it was a drink. Wikipedia's history of chocolate says cacao was first domesticated in what is now southeast Ecuador by the Mayo-Chinchipe culture, around 3300 BC, and that the Mokaya on the Pacific coast of Chiapas were drinking a bitter, frothy cacao drink by about 1900 BC. The Maya fermented, dried and roasted the beans, ground them on a stone metate into a paste, mixed it with water and flavorings such as vanilla, and poured the drink from a height to raise a foam. The Aztecs most often added chile, and also honey, vanilla, flowers and annatto, which turned the drink red; it was served hot and cold, mostly to the elite, and cacao beans themselves were used as money. A Spanish account published in 1556 and quoted by Cornell University Library's chocolate exhibit describes the beans being ground, mixed with water and poured from basin to basin "so that a foam is raised". Two things in many "Aztec hot chocolate" recipes are later additions: Wikipedia notes that cinnamon only reached the Americas with the Spanish, and sugar was a Spanish change too.
📖 Where is it from?: Why Do Colombians Put Cheese in Hot Chocolate? →
Why it works the kitchen science
Water, not milk
With no dairy to soften it, the chocolate tastes bitter and fruity and the chile comes through, much closer to the old drinks than anything with milk.
Pouring from a height
Each fall whips air into the cocoa butter and cacao solids, which hold a foam; that foam was the point of the old drink.
Step by step
- Step 1
Put the water and annatto in a small saucepan and bring to a simmer over medium heat, about 3 minutes. Take the pan off the heat.
- Step 2
Add the chopped chocolate and let it sit 1 minute, then whisk until completely melted and smooth, about 1 minute more.
- Step 3
Whisk in the honey, chile and vanilla. Taste and add more honey or chile if you like; it is meant to be bitter.
- Step 4
If it has cooled below steaming, warm it over low heat for 1 minute, to about 160°F. Do not let it boil.
- Step 5
Make the foam: pour the drink from about 12 inches up into a heatproof pitcher, then back into the pan, 6 to 8 times (about 1 minute), until a thick foam sits on top. Or whisk hard for 1 minute.
- Step 6
Spoon the foam into two small cups, pour the drink underneath, and scatter the cacao nibs on top. Serve hot.
Mesoamerican-Style Cacao Drink with Chile and Annatto
Serves 2 (small cups) · about 3/4 cup · 15 min total
Drink
- 3/4 cup (6 fl oz) water
- 1/2 tsp ground annatto (achiote)
- 2 oz 100% unsweetened chocolate, chopped
- 1 tbsp raw honey or agave nectar
- 2 tsp ground Chimayó red chile or ancho chile (or 1/2 tsp ground chipotle)
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
To finish
- 2 tsp cacao nibs
Method
- Put the water and annatto in a small saucepan and bring to a simmer over medium heat, about 3 minutes. Take the pan off the heat.
- Add the chopped chocolate and let it sit 1 minute, then whisk until completely melted and smooth, about 1 minute more.
- Whisk in the honey, chile and vanilla. Taste and add more honey or chile if you like; it is meant to be bitter.
- If it has cooled below steaming, warm it over low heat for 1 minute, to about 160°F. Do not let it boil.
- Make the foam: pour the drink from about 12 inches up into a heatproof pitcher, then back into the pan, 6 to 8 times (about 1 minute), until a thick foam sits on top. Or whisk hard for 1 minute.
- Spoon the foam into two small cups, pour the drink underneath, and scatter the cacao nibs on top. Serve hot.
Adapted from "Mesoamerican Chocolate Elixir" in New Mexico Magazine (Gwyneth Doland, "Rhymes with Kapow", January 25, 2018), which makes 2 small cups. New Mexico Magazine is published by the New Mexico Tourism Department. The magazine calls it a drink that likely resembles what the Maya made more than 1,000 years ago; we call it a modern home version. We use 1 tbsp of honey from its 1 to 2 and ancho chile from its choices (Chimayó red, ancho or chipotle). The pouring step to raise foam is ours, based on the historical accounts above; the magazine simply whisks. newmexicomagazine.org. Ingredient list follows the source; the method is in our own words.
Tips
- Use 100% chocolate with no sugar, sometimes sold as baking chocolate or cacao paste.
- Ground annatto (achiote) is in the Latin American spice aisle. It adds color more than flavor; leave it out if you cannot find it.
- New Mexico Magazine notes that this drink is nothing like the hot chocolate most Americans know. Serve it in small cups.
The rules people argue about
What the sources agree on, what they don't, and what is just a good story.
- The first chocolate was a drink, not a bar. Documented: Wikipedia's history of chocolate traces drinking chocolate back to about 1900 BC; solid eating chocolate is a 19th-century European invention.
- Aztec chocolate had cinnamon in it. Folklore: Wikipedia says cinnamon arrived with the Spanish; it is a Mexican addition after 1519, not an Aztec one.
- Foam was the most important part. Documented in the 1556 account quoted by Cornell and in Wikipedia's description of Maya and Aztec preparation.
- The Aztecs drank it cold, not hot. Disputed: often said; Wikipedia says the Aztecs served it both hot and cold.
- Cortés met chocolate at Moctezuma's court in 1519. Disputed: Wikipedia gives 1519 in one place and 1520 in another, and says only that Cortés "may" have been the first European to encounter it.
- The word "chocolate" comes from Nahuatl "xocolatl", "bitter water". Disputed: Wikipedia lists several competing explanations and says none is settled.
Every other hot chocolate
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Spanish Chocolate a la Taza (for Churros)
Dark chocolate melted into nearly boiling milk with a little cocoa, sugar and cornstarch, then stirred over low heat until it is thick enough to coat a churro. The Madrid way to start the day or end the night.
Italian Cioccolata Calda Densa
Milk whisked with cocoa and plenty of cornstarch, brought just to a simmer, then finished with melted dark chocolate until it is as thick as a loose pudding. You eat the last of it with a spoon.
Parisian Chocolat Chaud
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Viennese-Style Hot Chocolate with Whipped Cream (Heiße Schokolade Wiener Art)
Dark chocolate melted into hot milk with a little honey and cinnamon, poured into cups and capped with a big spoon of stiffly whipped cream, the way Austrian and German cafés serve it.
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Filipino Tsokolate (Tablea Hot Chocolate)
Pure roasted cacao tablets (tablea) dissolved in boiling water, simmered slowly with milk, sweetened with muscovado sugar and frothed with a wooden batirol. Thick, grainy and deeply chocolatey.
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Dutch-process cocoa and sugar whisked into a little water for one minute, then whole milk heated through on medium-high until steaming. Two real mugs of cocoa in the time it takes to find the packet.
Frozen Hot Chocolate, Inspired by Serendipity 3
Melted chocolate stirred with hot cocoa mix, sugar and milk, cooled, then blended with ice until it is thick like a frozen daiquiri and piled into a goblet under whipped cream and chocolate shavings. Inspired by, not official.
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