Cocoa bean husk ✦

Coques de cacao

What it is

The husk is about a tenth of the bean's weight, winnowed off after roasting, and in nineteenth-century Britain and France it was sold on its own as cocoa shell tea to households that could not afford the nib. It carries the smoke of the roast with almost none of the fat and almost none of the bitterness.

In the kitchen

Infuse it like tea - about 30 g per litre of cream or milk at 80C for twenty minutes, then strain and press the husks. Boiling drags out a papery bitterness that will not leave again.

Goes with

Cream Coffee Vanilla Pear Hazelnut Rye berries

Same species

Blond chocolate Cocoa mass Cacao pulp Cocoa butter Cocoa nibs Dutch-process cocoa powder

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