Chocolatería La Rifa
Friday, October 13
In Mexico you’ll find not only very good savory food, but also extremely good cacao, chocolate and the best hot chocolate/cocoa I have ever tasted. What surprised me most was that in Mexico, hot chocolate is traditionally prepared with water and not with milk.
To be honest when I first heard of this I was really skeptical and wasnt so sure if I would like hot chocolate made with water.
One afternoon I was walking through our neighborhood in Mexico City when I noticed the small café “Chocolatería La Rifa” and decided to order “Chocolate al agua”, hot chocolate/cocoa mixed with water. The cafe is a tiny space that basically just had enough space for the bar. Tables and chairs for guests are on the street in front of the café. If you look at the menu at La Rifa, it's clear that the café doesn't just offer hot chocolate, but really specializes in it. You can choose your desired cocoa drink from various options. However, one thing you need to know: the beverages offered here are not sugary, chocolatey children's drinks, but the focus lays on high-quality cacao and the cacao taste. In order to be able to taste the high quality cacao, the beverages here are not overly sweet.
The first decision you have to make when ordering is whether you want fermented cacao (“Cacao Fermentado”) or washed cacao (“Cacao Lavado”). Cacao is always fermented to make chocolate. The fermentation of the beans only is possible because of the juicy pulp surrounding the cacao beans. The beans, covered in white, sweet pulp, are traditionally spread between banana leaves and fermented there for about 9 days. This gives the cacao beans their characteristic chocolate taste, some acidity and fruitiness, and as a result of the fermentation process the color of the beans becomes darker. Fermented cocoa tastes particularly intense.
Washed cacao is called that because the beans are fermenting in the pulp for only one day. The pulp is then completely washed off and the cacao beans get dried in the sun. The moment the pulp gets washed away, the cacao beans cannot continue to ferment. The taste of the washed cacao beans therefore is a little more subtle and the beans also remain lighter in color.
So once you've decided whether you want your hot chocolate to be made from fermented or washed cacao, you now have to choose the cacao content of the chocolate they are using to make your beverage. You can choose from 50%, 70% and 100% cacao in the chocolate. Then you just have to decide whether you want your hot cocoa made with milk or water.
Since the traditional method of proparing this drink is with water, I chose a hot chocolate made from 70% washed cacao with water.
When the mug of hot chocolate was brought to my table shortly after, I was totally surprised at how frothy my drink was! The liquid was thick and creamy due to the added chocolate and its high percentage of cacao. The hot chocolate was whipped so well that it was a homogeneous mass with a firm foam on top. I took a second sip and just couldn't believe how intense, creamy and not at all watery this hot chocolate tasted. After this experience, I drank many more hot cocoas in Mexico over the next few weeks - always water-based and each of them was just incredibly creamy and delicious!
