Caramel Mocha - A coffee delight

How many of you are coffee lovers? I'm sipping my hot coffee right now. Can you smell it? There's a fantastic aroma originating from my kitchen now. Its late afternoon, dark outside and raining. Enjoying coffee on a rainy day is one of those simple pleasures of life. I have always noticed myself in an elated state whenever I enjoy my coffee. I am usually an incoherent amoeba until my first cup of coffee. But a dose of caffeine does magic to my mind and body. Complicated things seem to be simplified after a cup of coffee! It gets me going for the day. Fortunately, we both are coffee lovers and my hubby makes coffee much better than me. Since he's an early-morning person, he makes it every morning and I usually wake up smelling the aroma of freshly brewed coffee filling our house. His coffee has been a big hit in our friends circle and parties at our house never end without his yummy coffee.

One of my best experiences every time I visit India is enjoying that wonderful filter coffee at my hometown, I can even taste it when I close my eyes! Especially when I go home after a long time, that familiar coffee smell with which I grew up makes me feel so comfy! Though we still make our traditional filter coffee at home everyday, it didn't take a long time for us to get used to the coffee here. The first time we had coffee after coming to the states was at North Carolina. It was our first week in this country and our friends took us to this coffee shop in our neighborhood. We ordered and after a while, the girl came back with a big white cup (actually, its a bowl!) with a dark liquid in it. It took a few mins for us to realize that was it! It was watery, bitter and had a wierd flavor added to it (we later learnt it was hazelnut!). It was just shocking to know that coffee could be so different from country to country! We couldn't take more than two sips and had to dump the rest. We still feel so sorry for it, as my friends had paid for it. But surprisingly we adapted pretty quickly, perhaps there was no other choice in our work places. Nowadays I enjoy every flavor of it like latte, mocha etc. and I get fascinated with those fancy blended coffee at starbucks.

Well, last weekend I thought I deserved a pat on my back after finishing up my long pending pantry re-arranging project. I wanted coffee but I was also in a mood to prepare something elaborate (just coffee, not dinner!). So I made this Chocolate Caramel Mocha which I always relish. I've made this several times and keep tweaking with some variations everytime. This time I added a pinch of cinnamon powder and it tasted great! If you are a coffee lover, this is a treat for you!

Ingredients: (for 2 cups of Mocha)

• Instant Coffee Powder - 2 tsp
• Caramel - 1 tbsp
• Chocolate Syrup - 1 tbsp
• Water - 1 cup
• Sugar - 1 tsp
• Cinnamon powder - 1/2 tsp
• Hot milk - 1 cup
• Whipped cream - Optional.

Procedure:

• Heat the water in a pan. When its about to boil, add coffee powder, sugar, caramel, chocolate syrup and cinnamon powder. Stir until everything is completely dissolved. Remove from heat.
• If you have the patience, whip up the hot milk for a min or two until it forms foam on the top. This just gives that extra kick, but even otherwise it tastes great!
• In two serving glasses, fill up half of the glasses with the coffee mixture, then fill the remaining with the hot milk seprating the foam. Top it up with foam and whipped cream. Sprinkle with instant coffee powder and cinnamon powder.

There you go! Delicious Chocolate Caramel Mocha is ready!