Specialty Coffee Retailer is a publication for owners, managers and employees of retail outlets that sell specialty coffee. Its scope includes best sales practices, supplies, business trends and anything else to assist the small coffee retailer.
Issue link: https://read.dmtmag.com/i/96901
Chocolate love Coffee and chocolate just seem to go together, and the possible combinations are endless. BY BRENDA G. RUSSELL C hocolate is synonymous with passion. But while men place that fervor in a heart-shaped box for Valentine's Day, Vera Bettin fills coffee mugs year-round with mocha emotion. Bettin's passion for chocolate and coffee led her to open ChocoLaté Coffee in Atlanta and Decatur, Ga. As the name implies, both cacao and coffee beans are primal. "I loved chocolate and coffee my whole life," Bettin says. "When we opened our shop 10 years ago, we were really having a hard time with the name. We loved chocolate and we love coffee so we took Choco from chocolate and then Laté from latte." A name that invokes chocolate had better back it up on the menu. Chocolate choices include mochas such as dark chocolate, white chocolate, dark and white chocolate, white berry mocha, toasted almond mocha (coconut and chocolate) and a Turtle tracks latte (caramel and chocolate). For tea sippers, the shop offers a chocolate-flavored spiced chai tea. Cocoa pods are planted among Bettin's seasonal offerings: fall Pumpkin White Chocolate and Pumpkin Dark Chocolate mochas use Ghiradelli chocolate and pumpkin syrup. Cherry and orange syrups make a Christmas visit in Dark Chocolate Cherry and Dark Chocolate and Orange mochas. When developing her mocha menu, choosing the right espresso blend was key. "Chocolate can be very overpowering," Bettin says. "So that was the first step, and then the second step was to pick the chocolate that we like. Of course we have white chocolate and stuff like that. But we started with dark chocolate with everything, because we figured if we make it into a mocha you're adding some steamed milk in there—you're turning it into a milk chocolate, technically. So if you start with milk chocolate you'll milk it down further. We also like the taste of dark chocolate because it's less sugary and it's got more of a smoky, complex taste." 20 Coconut Mocha from Cappuccine is a combination of coconut, chocolate and coffee. The search for a perfect match continues in supplier choices. "We didn't look at vendors in terms of price or name," she says. "We really went by ingredient list. So as we were researching it, if we saw the second ingredient was high fructose corn syrup, no thank you. If the third ingredient was food coloring we said no thank you. So we just pared it down that way. We use mostly Ghiradelli just because we like their ingredient list." Finally, patrons are brought into the courtship. "We involve our customers in everything," she says. "So if we ever start a new drink we mix it every which way you can imagine. We have panels of 20 to 30 customers blind-test the different recipes, and the ones that have the best comments are the ones we choose. Then we work our pricing backwards from that. What's this going to taste the best with and what can we sell that for and still make a profit?" Bettin's hot chocolate drinks range from $2.75 to $4.25. The best-selling dark mocha starts at $3.55 to $5, and the specialty mochas are priced from $4.21 to $5.93.