Mexican Hot Chocolate

Hi again! 

This past December, my family made a trip to Mexico. We were in a nice hotel in Playa del Carmen and it was a super good, fun, lazy, indulgent time :) . 

We did lots of touristy stuff, which was fascinating and informative. We learned lots about Mayan culture as well. And we ate lots of food!

One of the neat little places me and my brother went to was this coffee shop called Ah Cacao. It's a Mexican chain that seems to mainly have branches in the Riviera Maya. We each got a Mayan hot chocolate and I bought these chocolate discs to make my own hot chocolate at home. 

Here's how it went down:

Here's what one of the discs looks like. It's neat that you can separate it into little chunks! You need two or three pieces for one cup of hot chocolate. 

I went conservative and only used two pieces. 

Then you need some milk, naturally. You're supposed to heat the milk to the point that it's bubbly and frothy, but not quite a boil. 

Drop in the chocolate pieces and mix them around so they melt. I whisked a lot! I believe the instructions said to make it frothy. 

When it's done, put it in a mug and enjoy!

It was very nice. Not too sweet and not too heavy either. I liked it :) pretty simple stuff, and I just like that it's legit Mexican :)

Thanks for reading!

Yuna

My first attempt at French press coffee

Hello!

I've got a lot of posting to catch up on, but let me first show you my first attempt at making French press coffee. It was ... Ok. Admittedly, it turned out to be a bit watery, but it got the job done! I'll add more coffee grounds next time. 

I don't actually like coffee all that much, so I made a cafe au lait, or something like it. 

Here's the coffee I bought from Weaver Street Market. The internet said I should get a course grind, so that's what I did. It's a medium roast because I can't handle dark coffee...

Here's the coffee grounds in the French press. I should put more in next time. Rookie mistake. 

Here's some boiled water in the French press. So far so good. 

View from the top. Kinda... Unappealing... 

I heated up some soy milk to make a cafe au lait. So much cheaper than buying one at the coffee shop! But perhaps not as good... At least not yet :)

There were little coffee grounds floating around. 

The internet (and the instructions on the French press) said to stir the coffee grounds. So I did. 

Then I pressed! It was at this point that I realized that the coffee was too watery. But... On well. It was just for me anyways. :)

Here's my cafe au lait with chocolate croissant! It was a nice Sunday morning treat :)

Hopefully next time the coffee will turn out better (in time for my friends to visit me in NC!)

Bye bye!

Yuna

Update: my brother informed me I need to use three scoops of coffee grounds per one regular mug of coffee. I did that today, and my coffee looks much more coffee-like. Hooray!