Americano Mocha

Before a friend introduced me to this drink a couple summers ago, I ingested massive quantities of calories in creamier concoctions. It's a simple mixture for those who enjoy the core chocolatey coffee taste of a mocha. Some complexity enters with different titles and instructions for ordering depending on which shop you attend. The benefit is lower price and less all the calories and thickness of milk. It's my favorite as a frequent frugal cafe patron, and there's a fantastic iced version as well!

I started with sweet iced versions prior to truly embracing the taste of coffee. Back then the little espresso stand outside Yard Birds called these "Iced Mochas" but we just called them "coffee drinks" and being blended they resembled Starbucks' Frappuccino. These days having something so sugary and caffeinated will send me buzzing into a crash. When I indulge beyond black coffee, I go for this drink: the Americano Mocha.



The ingredients are simply espresso shots, water, and pumps of regular (not white) mocha chocolate. An americano is just shots and water versus steamed milk in a mocha (previously known as a mocha latte). In order to come out right the order to add these is chocolate, water, and then shots. If the chocolate is added second it doesn't mix right and you end up with what tastes like a normal americano and thus very bitter. I always grab a stir-stick or straw when an unfamiliar barista constructs one for me, because they may have never dealt with it before.

Depending on where you go the drink may be called something else. At Starbucks I order as "americano with mocha" but often they'll reflect this back as "mocha americano" to me and the barista. Victor's, in Redmond, calls this an "americano with chocolate" as will probably many small cafes who use essentially just chocolate in their normal mocha's. It's not worth arguing over, but one cashier at Tully's tried to impress upon me the importance of using "chocolate" when I tried to argue "mocha pumps" was sufficient. The amount of chocolate pumps is really important to the mixture coming out correctly, but you can usually say "however much is in a normal mocha". Unfortunately Tully's is bad at making these drinks and, even when my sister worked there (and we experimented with the measurements), I've never had one taste right. Also, an americano has one more shot per cup-size (2 for tall/12oz, 3 for grande/16oz, and 4 for vente/20oz) than an equivalently sized latte/mocha, so make sure the amount of chocolate you're getting is based on the cup and not the number of shots.

The price of an americano with mocha chocolate added is typically significantly less than a full-blown mocha simply because you're cutting out the cost of the milk and the labor to steam it. And since you're only consuming shots and chocolate, the calorie content is a lot less. My friend estimates each pump of chocolate at Starbucks to be 25 calories and so less anything the shots add, a 3pm (three pumps of chocolate) grande Americano Mocha is a measly 75 calories! What I've done in the past is subtract the calorie count of a latte from a mocha and come up with a somewhat higher number (like 50 per pump) which is still very low.

In conclusion, if you're looking to save calories and spare your wallet while sipping something more than the average Joe, I recommend you try an Americano Mocha! On hot summer days you can have them ice it. Alternatively you may get more bang for your buck and a better consistency if you simply order the espresso shots "on ice" and with the pumps on top; you'll have to specify the cup size separately (it's not implicit). For example, Starbucks currently charges 65 cents a shot and 50 cents for "any" amount of mocha. Thus "three shots of espresso on ice with three pumps mocha in a grande cup" should run you about 2.45 before tax. Woohoo, that's hardly more than the cost of a grande cup of coffee!