After round 15 (Crio Bru Ghana Light vs Choffy Ivory Coast Medium) I thought about how I may wind up picking up one of them in a larger volume once the whole side-by-side testing is done, so I went to the websites to specifics on sizes and prices. For their normal varieties, Choffy and Crio Bru each offer 3 sizes:

• Small

  • Crio Bru 10 oz - $12.95 = $1.295 per oz

  • Choffy 12 oz - $14.99 = $1.249 per oz

• Medium

  • Crio Bru 24 oz (1.5 lb) - $29.95 = $1.248 per oz

  • Choffy 32 oz (2 lb) - $34.99 = $1.093 per oz

• Large

  • Crio Bru 80 oz (5 lb) - $69.95 = $0.874 per oz

  • Choffy 80 oz (5 lb) - $79.99 = $1.00 per oz

For the lower tiers, Choffy comes out the winner on price per ounce. This is also true with their sampler sets. But when they hit 80 oz, it flips pretty drastically, and for the same size, the Crio Bru is actually $10 cheaper! I found that to be really surprising! Crio Bru doesn't always offer the 80 oz size for all varieties, but in the cases where they do, it seems to be the cheapest option.

Update: April 2022

At some point in the last couple of months, both Choffy and Crio Bru have updated their prices. In addition, Choffy has moved their smaller size from 12 oz to 10 oz, and Crio Bru appears to be starting to offer a 3 lb size in some varieties. Now the standings are:

• Small

  • Crio Bru 10 oz - $13.95 = $1.395 per oz

  • Choffy 10 oz - $13.95 = $1.395 per oz

• Medium

  • Crio Bru 24 oz (1.5 lb) - $31.95 = $1.331 per oz

  • Choffy 32 oz (2 lb) - $35.99 = $1.125 per oz

• Large

  • Crio Bru 36 oz (3 lb) - $54.95 = $1.526 per oz

• Extra Large

  • Crio Bru 80 oz (5 lb) - $72.95 = $0.912 per oz

  • Choffy 80 oz (5 lb) - $79.99 = $1.00 per oz

The new 36 oz size from Crio Bru is hands down the worst price per oz out of everything. Since all varieties show "sold out" for that size, I wonder if they're still trying to work out the price.

Anyway, for the small size, they're now the same price. Choffy is still cheaper for the medium tier, and Crio Bru is cheaper for the extra large tier.

As of round 18 (Crio Bru Nicaraguan Medium vs Crio Bru Ecuador Light) I felt like I was finally starting to mentally put together the pieces of the overarching flavors of origins. The Ecuador roasts all have the basis of that sharp and pungent scent and flavor. The Ivory Coast / Ghana roasts all seem to be milder and have that grainy or nutty quality.

That left me thinking about the Volta roasts from Choffy. Given the similarity of the Volta Medium roast to the Nicaraguan and Venezuelan Medium roasts, I though that they must be from similar regions, but It felt a little tenuous to me because I know Nicaragua is in Central America and Venezuela is in South America. (It turns out they're about 1300 miles apart, as the crow flies, so not that close.) After some deeper looking on the Choffy website, I found that Volta is a region of... Ghana! That made me wonder if I could find anything about the region that the Crio Bru Ghana roasts come from, and it turns out that they come from the "Volta River" region, or the exact same place!

So I had built up in my head that the Volta roasts must come from somewhere in Central or South America, when it turns out that's not the case at all. It's really making me wonder about my comparisons, and how maybe my brewing methods were more influential than I thought.

I see at least 1 or 2 rematches in my future, and probably purchasing at least 1 more round of the Choffy Volta Medium roast so I can do a direct comparison to the Ghana Roasts.

Outside of the updates to my actual brewing equipment, my overall process has been the same since starting the side-by-side testing: 2 tablespoons of grounds per 12 oz cup, which realistically gives me about 10 oz to drink.

Sam mentioned recently that he has settled on using 3 tablespoons when he brews. I was curious about whether he was on to something with it, so I wanted to test that for myself. Then that got me thinking about the actual directions from each company, as well as going the other way and seeing how little I can get away with in terms of grounds or time.

This intermission is comprised of quite a few side-by-side tests and encompasses several days worth of time investment, but each test will be the same roast on both sides, but just with varying amounts of time and grounds. These tests will not contribute to the rankings on the Cocoa Conclusions page.

Between rounds 13 and 14 I picked up a better tea infuser and nailed down my brewing process a bit better. I wanted to test the same variety of grounds side-by-side with itself in the two methods to see if I can spot any differences. I picked up a mostly full bag at semi-random, which happened to be Crio Bru Ecuador Light Roast. I'd considered using Crio Bru Vanilla since I have a 10 oz. bag of it, but I was afraid that the vanilla flavoring would hide any of the slight difference that may occur.

While I think that there would have been more of a difference using my old tea infuser, which left a lot more sediment behind, I'm happy to report that the new infuser and the french press create identical brews. I can now carry on through my side-by-sides with confidence that I'm really getting a 1-to-1 comparison.

Per Sam's mention of using 3 Tbs per brew, I decided to look up the brewing directions for each brand:

• Crio Bru: 2 Tbs per 8 oz and brew for 10 minutes. This one is the most direct 2 Tbs vs 3 Tbs that Sam mentioned.

• Choffy: 2 Tbs per 6 oz and brew for 6 minutes

• Chocolate Alchemy: According to the website it's 2 Tbs per 4 oz and brew for 5 minutes. The actual package says to do 3 Tbs per 8 oz for 5 to 6 minutes.

My standard method has been closest to the Crio Bru method. I normally do 2 Tbs per about 10 oz (12 oz cup minus room for grounds) for 10 minutes, so most of the suggestions above seem like the would go through a lot of grounds really fast comparatively.

Chocolate Alchemy

I used Anakin for this. I did one as the normal 2 Tbs for 10 minutes, and in the other I did 3 Tbs for 5 minutes. I didn't taste any difference either before and after the addition of vanilla almond milk. I'm kind of wondering if a longer brew time would have yielded a stronger flavor in the 3Tbs version.

Revisit

On 6/2/2022, Chocolate Alchemy posted a new Ask the Alchemist article, all about brewing cocoa. In there he had his reasons for why he settled on fairly high amounts of grounds and shorter amounts of time, which often has to do with astringency, bitterness, and "mouth feel". (yuck, I hate that phrase.) With that in mind, I decided to have another go, this time using the Bolivia grounds. I made 2 cups side by side, one my usual way, which is now 8 minutes of brewing instead of 10, and one per the directions.

The flavor of the usual one seems fine and normal for this roast. The one done per directions is stronger, and it does seem a little "thicker" I guess. I'm not sure if it's the strength of the flavor or something else, but there also seems to be a bit more tartness to it. Going back to the usual one, it is thinner and the flavor is weaker, but honestly, I think I like it just a little bit better when drinking them black like this.

And for the vanilla almond milk test... The usual one has more of a chocolaty flavor now. It's pretty good overall, but I'm not picking up on the "more chocolaty version of toasted marshmallow" that I had gotten during my very first taste test when it had first arrived. When tasting the one per directions, it evidently requires more almond milk to make a difference because when adding the same amount I put in the usual one, it didn't really change the flavor at all. With just a little bit more added, it's still a little tart, and I can now pick out more of a chocolaty flavor, but it is still stronger overall, and still feels thicker. It's not gritty, per se, but it's just... "more". Honestly... between the two, I actually do prefer my usual way of making it.

Revisit 2.0

On the same day as the previous revisit, I'm doing another one. This time with Foglifter, which is known (for me) to go super tart in comparisons. I wanted to see if the shorter brewing time with more grounds helps that at all. I will say that while it's been sitting here cooling, it smells a lot like fresh brownies in here. Yum. Starting again with my usual brew, taking the first sip, it's pretty good. There's a good fudginess to it, and only just a little bit of tartness. I think this is definitely one that benefits from not being paired up for a comparison with other varieties. Just looking at the "per directions" brew, I can absolutely see that it's thicker. It clings to the wall of the mug a good bit has to be swirled around to knock it down. Taking a sip, hoo-whee that's tart! Like, face-squinchingly tart. Wow. That will certainly wake you up, but not because of the theobromine content. I can just feel my salivation glands kick into high gear right away. Going back to the usual brew cup, I definitely like that better. It's milder, and now in comparison to the per-directions cup, the tartness is pretty much gone. I know that John, at Chocolate Alchemy, would say it's "weak", but yeah, that per-directions cup is just an assault on the senses.

With vanilla almond milk in both of them now, I'm trying this again. The usual brew mug is nice and chocolaty, not tart, and is honestly a joy to drink. Going by my experience above with the Bolivia test, I added a little extra to the per-directions mug up front, and the aroma is very fudgy brownie, but the flavor is still really tart. And weirdly, I'm not picking up a huge chocolate flavor in it. I don't want to overdo it with the almond milk, but I added just a little splash more to see how that does. It has a little bit more of the baked brownie flavor to it now, but it's still really tart. The usual mug is still mild, not so tart, and really good overall.

So having done this twice now this morning with two different roasts, even though John would disagree, I think I have to say that I still prefer my usual way with less grounds and more brewing time. I may find one more to try sometime, but I think I'm done for today.

Crio Bru

I used the Venezuela Medium roast and did one my normal way and one according to directions, which means 3 Tbs in one of them. There may be just the tiniest bit of extra "thickness" to how it feels, and there may be the absolute tiniest bit of extra chocolatey flavor to it, but it's not enough to warrant going through it 1.5 times as fast.

Choffy

I went with the Ivory Coast Medium roast, one according my usual 2 Tbs / 10 min process, and the other was 4 Tbs for 6 minutes. Even before tasting it, I will say that putting that many grounds into the french press was painful. It just felt like such a waste. Especially considering that since my french press is single-serving size, and less water was able to go in, so in the end I wound up with less brew in my cup. Since it's the Ivory Coast Medium, I may just take the grounds and add them to some cereal later just so I feel like I'm getting some use out of them.

As far as feel and taste of the brew, it mostly mirrored what I experienced with Crio Bru, which was maybe the tiniest bit of a thicker brew, and with the shortened brewing time, maybe the tiniest less bitter. But they're so close that I don't think I could tell them apart if I didn't know which was which. Actually... I take that back about the slightly less bitter thing. Towards the bottom of the cup, because it had more sediment due to the press bottoming out, it got to be slightly more bitter.

Conclusion

One thing the Choffy and Chocolate Alchemy had in common was that they have you brew more grounds for a shorter amount of time. I may have to address that with another test where I brew 2 cups for the same amount of time with a different amount of grounds, but otherwise, as it stands, I have to say it's definitely not worth it.

I used Crio Bru Vanilla Light roast for this. There's a possibility that a darker roast with a stronger flavor may behave differently, but I have a big bag of the Vanilla, so I'm going with that for these tests.

This is the test that's based on Sam's original statement of using more scoops. He even told me the other day that he wanted to take some to work, so he brewed 4 Tbs in the french press (he has the same small one from Ikea that I do) and then added hot water to it once it was in a larger travel mug, and it turned out great.

And after all of that, I taste no difference. And of course now that this is done I just realized that this is literally the exact same test I did for the Crio Bru Venezula Medium roast above in the "Following the Directions" section. Sigh.

I used Choffy Ecuador Dark roast here. I thought maybe if I were to notice a difference, it would be more with one of the darker roasts. The 6 minute version may be a tiny bit less bitter, but also has less of the pungent flavor that makes the Ecuador origin stand out. The 10 minute brew smells "fuller" and does have more flavor to it, especially as I get to the bottom of the mug. I have a feeling that there may be a barely imperceptible sweet spot at around the 8 or 9 minute mark.

I would be lying if I said that I thought that brewing cocoa was not expensive. I'm really enjoying the journey, and I'm also enjoying the bit of ritual that it has introduced into my day. But wouldn't it be nice if I could find a way to stretch my money a bit further? Yes, yes it would.

The primary goal of Intermission 3 (Testing Tweaks to the Brewing Process) was to ensure that I am doing what I can to get the best brew I can, but to also make sure sure that I'm not doing things excessively and just throwing my money away. Intermission 4, on the other hand, is about stretching my dollar as far as I can while still enjoying my brewed cocoa.

Originally some of these tests were part of Intermission 3, but I realized that their goal was different, and so they deserved to be their own thing. Depending on how much this grows, this may be given its own page like the side-by-side tests. Depending on how many of these things differ by roast or origin, there's even a chance that I may go more in depth, giving each roast its own page as I test them.

I used Crio Bru Venezuela Medium roast for this. I wanted to use Crio Brue Vanilla since I have a bigger bag of it, but I felt like the added vanilla flavor could throw things off. But after trying this test, I'm not so sure. These two taste surprisingly similar to me. I have to put a lot of time between sips and do a lot of switching up which one I sip first to tell much difference, but I think I can tell that the 1 Tbs version is a little thinner and weaker, but not as much as I thought it would be considering that it's literally half of the normal amount I use.

It just seems really weird to me because Sam swears he can taste a huge difference between 3 and 2 tablespoons.

Between these results and those from Test 3 of Intermission 3 (2 Tbs vs 3 Tbs) There may be more nuanced and in depth testing to do here. Is my choice of light or medium roasts causing a problem because the flavor is too light? Would I taste more of a difference between 1 and 3 Tbs? Do they taste so similar because I'm brewing for 10 minutes instead of 8 or 6 minutes?

It's been quite some time since I've done round one with the Venezuela Medium roast, and I've been wanting to revisit it with a stronger roast to see how it does. This is also long after the grounds reuse test for Anakin, and I was curious if I could get similar results where the toasted marshmallow flavor comes out stronger up front without having to rebrew. My assumption was that it was just the brew being weaker that tamed the roast and brought out the toast.

Up front, the cup with 1 tbs looked thinner and a little lighter and more translucent. The aroma coming off the top is also thinner.

In tasting the 1 tbs version first, it seemed like it would definitely be weaker than the 2 tbs brew. There was very little roast or chocolate flavor to it at all, really, but strangely, tasting the regular 2 tbs version right after it really doesn't taste much stronger. Even after waiting a little for my taste buds to settle and switching it around didn't seem to change that. I wonder if it's because the 1 tbs version smelled weaker when it was cooling it tricked my brain into expecting it to be a lot weaker when it actually isn't. Overall the 1 tbs version isn't bad. By the time I was halfway through, rather than calling it weaker, it felt more accurate to call it "milder". The sharper roasted edge of the roast was smoothed over a bit, and reminded me a lot of the rebrew test where I add 50% new grounds.

After adding vanilla almond milk, the toasted marshmallow flavor comes out of both quite well, but the roasty edge of the 2 tbs version is pretty tamed in the 1 tbs version. Overall it's not bad, but there's something about it where my mind still goes, "But it's only 1 tbs! That's not right!" I'll have to try it a few more times, maybe with other varieties, to see how I really feel about it.

Creo Chocolate mentions in their directions that the grounds can be reused by adding 50% more new grounds before brewing. I wanted to see how viable it is, because once I get to the point where I'm not doing side-by-side comparisons, this would be a handy way to cut down the amount of grounds used. I read on a different site that was rebrewing coffee about how reusing the same grounds just doesn't work out well at all, and given other similarities between coffee and cocoa, (roasting, grinding, brewing methods) my hopes weren't high.

I used Chocolate Alchemy Anakin for this because I'm getting low on it, and it has a strong flavor. I brewed my first cup, let it cool, added the vanilla almond milk like always, and drank it. It was good just like it always is. Once I was done, I made a second cup, adding one more scoop of fresh grounds to the french press, and brewed it otherwise as normal.

I don't know if it was a fluke, or if I did something wrong with the first cup, but the second cup was actually a lot better than the first cup! It was way more mellow, which makes sense considering that 2/3 of the grounds had been used already, but the toasted marshmallow flavor came through much more strongly. It was incredibly good! I'm going to have to do this again just to make sure I didn't screw something up. Maybe I need to measure out the almond milk to make sure I'm adding the same amount to both.

If I get the same results with another round of the Chocolate Alchemy, I may have to try it with some of the darker roasts that I don't like as much, like the Volta French roast or something.

It worked! I didn't measure the almond milk exactly, but I just tried to eyeball putting in roughly the same amount, and the second round was definitely that more mellow and more toasted marshmallow flavor. I'll definitely have to try this with another roast.

I decided to try it one more time, this time with Choffy Volta French roast, which so far has been my least favorite roast. My hope is that if this method could elevate the Chocolate Alchemy Anakin so much, maybe it could do the same here.

It definitely came out with less char in the flavor and a bit less bitter. Overall milder and smoother as expected, but without tasting watered down. I was hoping that with the roast itself toned down that maybe the chocolate flavor would come through a bit stronger, but that doesn't seem to be the case. Either way, I still like this second cup better than the first.

At this point, I could see this sort of testing being its own thing across all roasts and origins. I kind of suspect that lighter roasts may not do quite as well, but then again I could be surprised.

When doing round 2 of the 1 tbs vs. 2 tbs with the Chocolate Alchemy Anakin, I decided to take the opportunity to do a rebrew using only the previously used grounds and not adding anything new to it. I actually did this with both the 1 and 2 tbs versions. I wasn't counting on the 1 tbs version to do very well, but I figured now was a as good a time as any to try it.

As expected, the 1 tbs version was pretty weak the second time around. And it was definitely "weak" and not just "milder". The 2 tbs version, on the other hand, actually isn't bad. It reminds me quite a bit of the fresh round of 1 TBS. The sharper roasty edge is knocked off quite a bit.

Adding vanilla almond milk to the 1 tbs version just waters it down. A lot. I didn't even add very much. There's a little flavor, but I certainly wouldn't be excited to be drinking it every day. It's pretty much what I expected it would be, and I won't be going this minimal again.

I don't know if this should be surprising or not, but adding vanilla almond milk to the 2 tbs version pretty much does the same thing as the 1 tbs version, watering down quite a bit. It was okay, but I definitely wouldn't be excited to drink it every day.

In the end, I think as far as the rebrewing, if I do it, I definitely need to add the 50% new grounds to it in order for it to be acceptable.