Mexican Hot Chocolate Vs Champurrado: Is There A Difference?

In Mexico, where chocolate has been consumed for centuries, you'll find a wide variety of traditional drinks that are made with it. Hot chocolate and champurrado are certainly among the favorites. While both beverages use the same main ingredient, they differ in terms of other components, flavors, and textures.

Mexican hot chocolate and champurrado are made from solid chocolate tablets, usually flavored with cinnamon and sugar. Although they can be made with milk as the base, it is common to use very hot water to dissolve the chocolate for both Mexican chocolate and champurrado (in fact, it's from this tradition that the famous novel and film "Like Water for Chocolate" derives. When someone says they feel "like water for chocolate" it means they are boiling with anger).

While Mexican hot chocolate and champurrado have things in common, there are some significant differences between the two. For starters, aside from hot water and chocolate tablets, champurrado includes pinole or corn masa as a thickening agent. Pinole is a powder made from corn toasted on a griddle and ground on a metate. It was an important element in the nutrition of ancient Mesoamerican peoples.

Because it includes corn masa, champurrado is considered an atole, a thick, corn-based hot beverage. Atoles are velvety in texture, flavored with a variety of spices like vanilla, fruits like berries and guava, and nuts – peanut atole has long been a classic. But in Mexico, when you want atole flavored with chocolate, you ask for champurrado.

There are regional variations of champurrado, as there are no exact rules about what the ingredients should be depending on the taste and customs of whoever prepares it. For instance, some people prefer to use piloncillo instead of sugar when making champurrado. Traditionally, it is made in a clay pot and is an ideal accompaniment to tamales, often sold together in street stands or by mobile vendors cruising the city streets early in the morning or as the night sets in. It is, however, easy to make at home with this champurrado recipe.

In Mexico, hot chocolate is widely available in coffee shops and restaurants. To achieve its frothy head, it is whipped using a molinillo, a unique wooden utensil which whips air into the liquid, forming that wonderful foamy top. To make it at home, there are commercial brands available for purchase, but many Mexicans prefer chocolate de metate, which is handmade by grinding toasted cacao beans with sugar and cinnamon on a metate, then shaping the resulting paste into discs and allowing them to dry. Their consistency is grainy, unlike smooth European-style baking chocolate.