Someone dipping cake into Caribbean cocoa tea

Cocoa tea

Name: Cocoa tea
Prep time: 5 min
Cook time: 35 min
Total time: 40 min
Yield: 4
Cuisine: Caribbean
Ingredients: 60g raw cocoa stick grated; 3 cinnamon sticks; 4 bay leaves; 9 cloves; ¼ whole nutmeg grated; 2 tsp plain flour; 4 tbsp demerara sugar; 180ml whole or coconut milk

Keshia Sakarah

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Serves 4

Easy

Prep: 5 mins

Cook: 35 mins

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Almost like hot chocolate, this Caribbean speciality is the best tea you’ll ever taste. You'll need raw cocoa, milk and plenty of aromatic spices

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The tradition of cocoa tea drinking is said to have originated in the west coast town of Soufriere, St Lucia, around 1833 following abolition. As tea leaves were harder to source but cocoa was not, it became a new custom that has stuck ever since. I first tried this in St Lucia with bek fwi (fry bakes) for breakfast and have never looked back. Boiling the raw cocoa with the spices (and bergamot peel, as my friend from Grenada does) before adding the milk and sugar gives the tea an extra warmth and hum. Cocoa has been grown and exported from St Lucia, Grenada and Dominica – to name a few – for centuries. Along with sugar and coffee, cocoa was one of the main exports to Europe and beyond.

Recipes extracted from Caribe by Keshia Sakarah (£30, Quadrille). Photographs © Matt Russell. Recipes are sent by the publisher and not retested by us.

Cocoa tea recipe

Ingredients

Nutrition

60g raw cocoa stick

grated
3 cinnamon sticks
4 bay leaves
9 cloves
¼ whole nutmeg

grated
2 tsp plain flour
4 tbsp demerara sugar
180ml whole or coconut milk

Nutrition: per serving

kcal132
fat3g
saturates2g
carbs24g
sugars22g
fibre1g
protein3g
salt0.1g

Method

step 1

Put the cocoa, cinnamon, bay, cloves, nutmeg and 1 litre of water in a pan. Bring to the boil, then simmer for 25 mins. Strain the cocoa water, discard the spices and cocoa residue, then return the cocoa water to the pan.
step 2

In a separate bowl, dissolve the flour in 2½ tsp of water to create a paste, ensuring there are no lumps. Add 1 tbsp of the cocoa water, and stir in to temper the flour mixture. Add the flour mixture to the pan, then bring to the boil. Once the pan starts to come up to the boil again, whisk in the sugar and milk, then cook for a further 5-10 mins, or until thickened.

More ways with cinnamon sticks.

Several solskinnsboller buns on a table with coffee on the side

Authors

Keshia Sakarah

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