Review: Choffy Ground Cacao

I drink coffee every day, as much for the warm and cozy factor as the caffeine, so whenever I try to switch to something more healthy like juice for my morning drink, it never lasts long. I love wrapping my hands around a mug and staring off into space (or attempting to get work done). But coffee isn’t all that great for you. It’s not the worst thing I could drink, but sometimes I need to switch it up a bit.

I first heard about Choffy from Simple Mom. I love chocolate, but ground cacao beans made like coffee sounded a bit gross. But then I remembered that coffee is just a different kind of ground bean, right? So I ordered up a bag of Ecuadarian cacao.

Choffy is coarse ground, which makes it perfect for use in a French press. The aroma is amazing – it smells just like a bittersweet chocolate bar. It tastes a lot like it too. Honestly, the taste of Choffy is hard to describe. It’s not like hot chocolate, because it isn’t full of sugar, but it doesn’t have the same bitterness of coffee. I do like to add a tiny bit of sugar and some half-and-half to my Choffy, but that’s more of a personal preference because it’s how I drink coffee. I suspect the more I drink it the less I will add.

The cool thing about Choffy is that it has less caffeine than coffee. As in, almost none, depending on the sample of cacao beans. Apparently in cacao is a chemical called theobromine that is similar in effect (and structure) to caffeine, but it is much more gentle as a stimulant.

One problem I noticed is that brewed Choffy gets cold pretty fast, no matter what kind of cup I use for drinking. That’s annoying, but nothing a trip to the microwave can’t fix.

It’s also too bad that the only place to get Choffy is on the company website. I don’t expect to see it on the huge supermarket shelves any time soon, but it seems like something that Whole Foods would be interested in carrying, and that would certainly make it easier for me to recommend to others!

For me, Choffy is a treat. I don’t know that it will completely take the place of my morning coffee, but I love having the option.

I’m currently thinking of some recipes to use brewed Choffy in. Banana-Choffy muffins? Oh! I wonder how it could work as a mole sauce for chicken. Has anyone out there tried cooking with Choffy?

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