Cocoa party!  Yeah!
<p>First there was the Tea Party movement.  Which I&#8217;ve been keeping my distance from because while some of  the small-government talk appealed to my libertarian instincts, it seemed to have a whiff of grouchy-old-fart social conservatism about it. While I&#8217;ve nearly achieved the calendar age required for grouchy-old-fart status, I don&#8217;t want anything to do with that mindset thank you very much.</p>
<p>Then there was the Coffee Party movement, which smelled of astroturf and humbug even before the founder was outed as a Democratic political operative and former New York Times staffer (but I repeat myself).</p>
<p>Now, there&#8217;s&#8230;the <a href="http://pajamasmedia.com/zombie/2010/03/02/join-the-cocoa-party/">Cocoa Party movement!</a>  Yeah.  Sign me up!</p>
<p>This satire is especially personally funny to me because in sober fact I <em>am</em> a cocoa-drinker by choice.  I don&#8217;t like coffee, and while I enjoy tea well enough, I&#8217;d rather have a big mug of Godiva Dark Chocolate any day &#8211; extra strong, piping hot, no sugar or cream but a few shakes of cinnamon for sure.  </p>
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<p>My taste is particular, actually.  Most of the hot chocolate mixes sold in supermarkets are oversweetened muck with crappy chocolate in it and too little of that; if you&#8217;re carrying around the idea that it&#8217;s a drink for children, that&#8217;s why. I&#8217;ll drink Ghirardelli&#8217;s too, but it&#8217;s a bit too sweet and vanilla-flavored to be optimal. My wife actually set up a blind Godiva/Ghirardelli test for me once because she was curious whether I could really tell the difference, and it was quite easy; Godiva has a noticeably stronger and earthier flavor and even <em>looks</em> darker.  I&#8217;ve had import brands that were in a class with Godiva, but they tend to be more expensive and only sporadically available.</p>
<p>Starbucks uses Godiva syrup and actually does cocoa pretty well, which is more than my caffeinoholic friends will say for their coffee.   One such friend told me once that the original Starbuck business plan depended on the fact that the roasting process unavoidably produces a certain percentage of overroasted beans; according to his story, what Starbucks did was buy those on the cheap and market the charred, bitter flavor as a feature.  This turn-it-up-to-11 philosophy makes bad coffee but <em>really good cocoa</em>.</p>
<p>I have no actual punch line or moral for this post. Except to mote that that I refuse to &#8220;work toward the addition of those little marshmallows&#8221;. Gaaah.  I hate those things&#8230;</p>
