Chocolate and coffee are cousins. Both are roasted seeds, both live or die by freshness, and they make each other better when you pair them with a little intention.
How do you pair chocolate with coffee? One rule covers most of it: match intensity. A delicate milk chocolate disappears next to a dark roast, and a big bittersweet bar will flatten a light, fruity pour-over. Put gentle with gentle and bold with bold, and you are most of the way there.
I have spent a lot of mornings testing this, purely in the name of research.
Which chocolate goes with which roast?
With a light roast (bright, citrusy, tea-like), reach for milk chocolate or something nutty. Our dark milk chocolate at 55% has enough cocoa to stay interesting without bullying the cup. With a medium roast, the field opens up: caramel and toffee flavors in the coffee echo caramel and toffee in the chocolate. With a dark roast, you want a bar that pushes back, a 65% bittersweet with real texture.
The pairing we already did for you
Our Toffee Coffee Bar is this whole article in one bar. We cook fresh almond toffee in copper kettles, break it into large chunks, and fold it into our dark milk chocolate along with locally roasted coffee beans. Whole beans, so you get a real coffee crunch, not a vague mocha flavor. There is a mini version too, sized for one good coffee break.
And if you like the pairing in confection form, the Espresso Caramel in our Classic Collection is the after-dinner version: soft caramel, real espresso, bittersweet shell.
Tomorrow morning, break a square of whatever bar you have next to your cup and taste them together. Coffee first, then chocolate, then coffee again. The second sip is never the same as the first, and that is the whole fun of it.
Enjoy,
Chuck Siegel
Founder, Charles Chocolates
Chuck Siegel
Founder, Charles Chocolates
Chuck has been making chocolate in San Francisco since 1987. Self-taught, he founded his first chocolate company, Attivo Confections, sold it in 1995, and started Charles Chocolates in 2004 on one uncommon idea: chocolate should be treated like fresh food.
Everything is made in small batches with all-natural ingredients (real cream, real butter, real fruit) and no shortcuts. His work has earned a Good Food Award, Sunset Magazine's Best of the West, and recognition from San Francisco Magazine, and has been covered by KQED and the San Francisco food press.
