This story was researched and written by Fresh Cup in partnership with our sponsor, Ghirardelli.
“I wanted my family to be part of it,” Oscar Pineda says about his journey opening Adelitas Coffee Company, “and my wife and daughters came along.” The Wichita, Kansas cafe and roastery takes its name from the adelitas, the women who fought alongside soldiers during the Mexican Revolution and are enduring symbols of bravery. “We all bring something to the table,” Pineda says, “and we’re carrying the dream together.”
Although Adelitas roasts coffees from around the world, Pineda has shaped its coffee program and menu to prominently featureMexican ingredients and pairings. His Mexican mocha uses cinnamon and cloves and is a nod to Carlos V, the Mexican chocolate bar he grew up eating. “A lot of our menu is nostalgic,” he says. “Things I really enjoyed growing up as a kid. I wanted to build that into our menu.”
From gochugaru-spiked mocha to maple chocolate lattes, cafe menus highlighting the personal and cultural identities of the people behind the counter are showing up everywhere. Datassential, a foodservice research firm, reports that nine in ten U.S. restaurants feature globally inspired items on their menus. The company also says the word “fusion” is up 49% on restaurant menus over the past four years. The social listening and flavor trend platform Tastewise identifies “bold-but-grounded” recipes as a key way to create menu items in 2026 as consumers look for innovative takes on familiar items they already love.
Ghirardelli’s product development team is tracking this shift toward more globally inspired pairings.
“Coffee and chocolate are no longer being treated as a single flavor profile,” says Dave Dulyx, vice president of professional products at Ghirardelli. “Operators are exploring how chocolate interacts with texture, spice, fruit, nuts, and regional ingredients, which creates much more differentiation on menus.”
Making Chocolate Feel Like Home
Adelitas’ menu has the fingerprints of Mexican cuisine all over it, with regional flavors like horchata and Mazapán. Then there’s the Dulce Fuego, a mocha that features chocolate and habanero, softened with dark cherry syrup. “In Mexico we eat hot sauce with almost everything,” Pineda says. “So I thought creating a drink with habanero, getting a spicy kick with chocolate, would be a good drink for people who like spicy food.” The Dulce Fuego started as a seasonal drink, but its popularity kept it on the shop’s hidden menu, and it will soon earn a regular spot on the Adelitas menu.
In Canada, the Nanaimo bar is the classic callback to chocolate nostalgia. This famous Canadian no-bake dessert has three layers: crumb (often crushed graham crackers and coconut shavings), vanilla custard, and smooth chocolate. Some coffee shops draw on this classic recipe with a Nanaimo bar latte, often created using coconut milk, espresso, and chocolate.
Maple is another quintessential Canadian flavor that Dulyx calls “a strong Canadian cue that pairs exceptionally well with mocha.” In Riverview, New Brunswick, Buddha Bear serves a maple mocha latte they call the lumberjack mocha: a latte with mocha and maple syrups, plus marshmallows and a chocolate drizzle.
The Philippines also has a flavor tradition that lends itself particularly well to coffee pairings: tsokolate. The drink is made by dissolving tablets of ground cacao beans into a thick, rich beverage. Unsurprisingly, many coffee shops in the country have taken to blending coffee or espresso into a drink called tsoko-barako. This is one of the strongest connections between coffee and chocolate in the world, according to Dulyx. “Operators are building on that connection by layering in ingredients like ube, coconut, and other tropical flavors.”
Layers of Texture, Spice, and Sweetness
Korea is not traditionally seen as a country with a nostalgic connection to chocolate, Dulyx says, but still, “chocolate appears across beverages, bingsu (a Korean shaved ice dessert), cakes, pastries, and premium coffee drinks.” He points to how Korean cafes are adept at using different textures to make drinks feel more unique by “combining coffee, chocolate, grains, foams, creams, mousses, and crunchy inclusions into a single beverage experience.”
He adds that Korean cafe culture serves as an example of how familiar drinks can command higher menu prices when texture and presentation are elevated.
There is an emerging interest in gochujang and gochugaru–fermented and dried Korean chili preparations–as ingredients in coffee drinks as the sweet-and-spicy (‘swicy’) trend picks up. However, this seems driven more by innovators in the U.S. than traditional Korean cuisine. Morgan Eckroth, the 2022 U.S. Barista Champion turned TikTok personality, created a recipe for a Gochugaru Mocha. The recipe calls for cooking chili powder directly into the chocolate sauce base for a smoky-spicy take on the classic mocha. Washington’s Olympia Coffee takes a similar approach with their winter menu repeat, the gochujang hot chocolate.
Japan’s clearest impact on the global coffee industry is matcha, and matcha-chocolate pairings are already widespread. Matcha Cafe Maiko, a chain with locations across 15 U.S. states, lists a Matcha Chocolate Latte, a matcha latte finished with chocolate drizzle, as one of its best sellers.
Dulyx suggests the Japanese flavors of hojicha, yuzu, and black sugar can also play well with chocolate and coffee when used with restraint. “Sweetness becomes more subtle,” he says, “creating opportunities for chocolate to play a more nuanced role.”
The Common Thread
Zoom out, and Dulyx sees one throughline connecting it all: “From a broader perspective, we’re seeing consumers gravitate toward beverages that deliver an experience,” he says. “Operators are finding success by adding unique textures, finishing rituals [like aromatic oil sprays or fresh herb garnishes], or functional or seasonal ingredients.”
He says this is not a reflection of a decline in demand for the classic mocha. There’s still plenty of interest in the base coffee-plus-chocolate pairing. However, he says it’s notable that consumers “are rewarding operators who elevate [chocolate drinks] through premium ingredients, texture, and presentation.”
Photos courtesy of Adelitas Coffee Company
Sponsored by Ghirardelli
