iced mochas

[Patricia Denison]

Any tips on mixing the chocolate into iced mochas. I use Ghirardelli sauce and a premix we make of milk and espresso.

 

[celement]

We don't blend

We simply add the sauce we've chosen, the cold espresso shot, the milk, stirr aggressively (my baristas' hate it when I use that word), add ice and whip is offered on top.

I love offering up these drinks and am looking to do some promotion on them this summer to help sales. They cost me less, take less time to make, and my clientele so far is liking them.

PS...we went to davenci syrups...I wasn't fond of this at first but I taste tested it with 3 customers, with all employees, and found no difference other then an extraordinary cost difference for not using it. Our pumps now cost 7 cents instead of 11 with Gharidelli

 

[drrule]

Take a gallon of milk, remove 20 oz milk, add 15 pumps of chocolate. Shake well before you serve.


If you want to save more time figure out where on the gallon 70 oz is, add 10 pumps choc. add 16oz of espresso. Or figure out where your best flavor profile is!


Prepare the drink. Fill cup 1/2-3/4 with ice pour mocha concentrate and serve.

Sure makes it simple.

 

[Coffee Guy]

Take your cold cup (whatever size) and fill with ice and milk and set aside. Get a seperate cup (plastic or whatever) pump your chocolate sauce into this cup. Add your hot shots of coffee to it and blend. Then take the blended shots and chocolate and pour over the iced milk that you had sitting aside. A couple of quick stirrs, cap it and you're done. When you prepare your iced mocha this way, you avoid having to scrape chocolate from the sides and bottom of the cup. Plus the coffee and chocolate are well blended, in addition, you won't melt the ice. You will find that you drink will be consistent each time you make it. Hope this helps... :wink: P.S. I don't condon pre making large batches and storing them. Each customer deserves to have a freshly made drink each and every time...

 

[celement]

cold shots

I agree with coffee guy about pre making drinks...but I don't think its off base to chill fresh shots each day and use cold espresso shots instead of the hot one's on a cold drink...I just find that creates a less then cold drink or I have to use too much ice and the customer is unhappy with the volume they get.

Iced (non blended) drinks can get "sucked down" pretty fast by the consumer....I've opted not to make our smallest 12 ounce available on iced drinks because its just too much ice and not enough good stuff...

 

[Coffee Guy]

WHAT!!! celement, you disagree with me??? :grin: Just kidding...I guess what works for each person is the best for them. This is just the way I train our employees and customers to gain a consistent way of preparing an iced mocha. Although our method may sound like a lot of steps, it's actually pretty quick on prep time.

 

[jammin' java]

pre-mix mocha sounds great to me

Opened May, 26 …. And were still in business. I love reading how you-all do these different drinks. I have been making all drinks individually. When my Ghirardelli pumps clogged up it was a crises. But, a lot of hot water and a little clean-up seemed to solve the problem. How often do these pumps need cleaning? My goal is $1000/day!!! It seems to me that any thing less will make this an experiment in futility. I would sure love to hear a discussion on this topic. ..... the pre-mix mocha sounds like a great idea for a drink special of the day

:-D

one month in business and all that caffine i had to put a new notch in my belt

 

[Coffee Guy]

I'm still against the idea of premaking or preblending for an iced mocha, the customer may not know the difference, but we would. But as I mentioned earlier, use the method that works best for you.

Celement, the only thing we use chilled shots of coffee for is our granita mix (like a Slurpee type drink). And as for hot shots, it is best to used to blend the thicker syrups like Hershey's and other sauces when pouring over the cold milk with ice.

 

[celement]

Good luck on the 1k a day java...I've never had one yet...desperately would like to get there...if you have any suggestions would be glad to hear em.

I'd have to experiment more with hot shots over cold items to create an iced (rocks) drink. My past experiences led to way too much melted ice....and I felt like I was not giving the customer the best quality until it was suggested that I cool shots each morning for the afternoon....I mean what else do I have to do between 5 a.m. and 6 a.m.....I only get about 5 customers that hour

 

[Coffee Guy]

Yeah things are a little different here in my neck of the woods...Our first wave of regulars heading to work between 5-6 am are sometimes waiting for us to open at 5. We've tried 4:30 a few times, but no action. I guess if you are chilling shots fresh that morning to be served sooner than later is not a bad idea. I thought you were chilling shots and collecting them over a period of time...opps my bad

Hey Celement what are your hours, and how long have you been at your current location?

 

[celement]

Yeah things are a little different here in my neck of the woods...Our first wave of regulars heading to work between 5-6 am are sometimes waiting for us to open at 5. We've tried 4:30 a few times, but no action. I guess if you are chilling shots fresh that morning to be served sooner than later is not a bad idea. I thought you were chilling shots and collecting them over a period of time...opps my bad

Hey Celement what are your hours, and how long have you been at your current location?

M-F 5:30 a.m. to 7:30 p.m.
S-S 7:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m.

We've picked up traffic since summer started from 6 a.m. to 7 a.m. nicely, but basically just lost it during the later morning hours. I'm suffering about a 10 - 15% overall decline since May right now. I attribute this to our large teacher \ parent base that is gone for the summer, a new starbucks drive through one big blvd over from us, and atypical not hot nearly perfect weather for the last 3 weeks....if we could pull down some 95 degree days our cold drinks will pick up the slack....I had to move my staffing from a 3 person morning to a more spread out day and cancel plans to hire a new barista.

There is traffic at 5:30 at my location, but starbucks owns it. I've been in our spot since September 2004. It was a drive through coffee place then but was run into the ground...we trippled the business but sadly we haven't been able to bust through to quadrupling it....argh...

 

[Coffee Guy]

Those are some good hours...Ours M-F 5am-8pm, Sa 6am-8 pm & Su 7am-7 pm. During the summer when is stays lighter longer, we extend 1 hour later providing traffic flow dictates it. Isn't it funny that 5 years ago Starbucks did not care about drive thrus, however, once they witnessed the independents become successful, then boom. It didn't hurt matters for them either once they purchased Seattle's Best Coffee (SBC) who used to be their biggest competition.

Yeah, it's hard to revive a business when someone previously ran it in the ground. We experienced that early on when we purchased our first back in '95. But you know what? If you've been adding TLC since you've opened it, it will get better Seeing that you've been there for almost a year, are you seeing a trend develop yet? Some may get discouraged after the first few months and give up, but it sounds like you are there for the long haul. Don't give up. I have to say that I like the vehicle(s) you have. Are they delivery vehicles, and do you cater or have a mobile route?

 

[celement]

Coffee Guy well the last of the four starbucks to surround is now open...they opened the last two in the last 3 to 4 weeks. I really don't have it so bad....one was a single block from one of the cities most established coffee houses. Good rumor has it their lease is up in August and they have no intention of renewing - they tried selling but Starbucks bought the land they built on and everyone (including me) knew they were coming to that spot. The second one they opened is right across the street from a double drive through like mine. Both of these are prototype sit down \ drive through coffee houses.

We've been in it since Sept. We budgeted to go the entire year with out income and have. That hurts. What is really bugging us is that since summer kicked in and these two starbucks opened at the same time we've gone down in volume and business. We were at the point where we were just turning the edge in profitability and boom....summer, school out, and 2 starbucks and we're down 20% over the last 4 weeks. I'm deterined to get it back - but don't know how per say.

The vehicle is right now a delivery only - but we just installed our espresso machine, water tank and pump. The generator is Saturday and then its sinks. After that some refrigeration, blender, and storage items and we're ready to go shopping....I'd like to park right front of a Starbucks but oh well....I'm spiteful

 

[topher]

back to blending the chocolate :wink: Pour your cold milk into the cup...blend the chocolate into the hot espresso...then pour it into the milk...this will chill the shot...then add your ice..I persoanlly can not stand chilled espresso...it goes flat...nothing worse than a dead espresso!

 

[ElPugDiablo]

I do the same with chocolate and hot espresso as topher, while pulling shots, I fill the plastic cup with ice, then add milk, leaving room for the espresso and chocolate, once the espresso is done, I stir it first, then dump the espresso mix, milk and ice into a cocktail shaker, give them a shake then pour the drink back into the plastic cup. One of the baristas was a bartender, he throw the shaker like they did in the movie, it helps the tips...I guess.