Two different things get called a cacao pod. This is the one that goes in a brewer.
Search for cacao pods and most of what comes back is fruit — the ridged, football-sized pod that grows on the tree with thirty-odd seeds in a white pulp. That is where chocolate starts, and you cannot brew it. This page is about the other kind: a pre-filled cup of roasted, ground cacao that drops into the brewer already on your counter and makes a cup of brewed cacao in the time it takes to make coffee.
Roasted cacao, ground and sealed in a filter cup. Nothing to measure.
Three things people mean by “cacao pod”
They are not variations on each other. Two of them are food, one of them is a drink, and only one goes in a machine.
The pod on the tree
Theobroma cacao grows a ridged fruit six to ten inches long, holding thirty to fifty seeds in a sweet white pulp. Those seeds have to be fermented, dried and roasted before anything can be brewed from them. You can buy fresh pods online by the box, and people do — for chocolate-making, for teaching, for display. What you cannot do is put one in a brewer. If that is what you came looking for, you want a fruit supplier, not us.
The pod in your brewer
A single-serve cup is the finished article. The beans have already been fermented, dried, roasted and ground to a brewing grind, and sealed in a filter cup. Hot water goes through it the way it goes through coffee, and what comes out is brewed cacao — dark, unsweetened, and nothing like a mug of instant. Ours work in a Keurig® brewer, and there is nothing to measure and nothing to knock out and rinse afterwards.
And the chocolate pod already on the shelf
Most pods sold as chocolate are hot cocoa mix: sugar first on the ingredient list, then whey and cocoa processed with alkali, and they dissolve rather than brew. That is a perfectly good drink and it is not this one. Same machine, different category — one is a mix stirred into water, the other is a bean brewed through a filter.
The three side by side
Ours in the first column. Ingredient statements as published.
| Choffy single-serve cups | A hot cocoa mix pod | A fresh cacao pod | |
|---|---|---|---|
| What it is | Roasted cacao, ground | A sugar-based drink mix | The raw fruit off the tree |
| Ingredients | 1 | 12 in Swiss Miss Milk Chocolate | Not a food product as sold |
| First ingredient | Roasted cacao beans | Sugar | — |
| How you make it | Brewed through a filter | Dissolved in hot water | It cannot be brewed |
| Goes in a Keurig® brewer | Yes | Yes | No |
| Cocoa processed with alkali | Never | Usually, and the label must say so | — |
| What you are buying it for | A daily cup | A sweet drink | Chocolate-making, teaching, display |
Swiss Miss Milk Chocolate Hot Cocoa Mix ingredient statement as published, checked 15 September 2026 — labels change, so read the packet. US labelling requires cocoa treated with alkali to be declared as such. Our ingredient statement is on our own bag and box. Keurig® and K-Cup® are registered trademarks of Keurig Dr Pepper Inc.; Choffy is not affiliated with, endorsed by or sponsored by Keurig Dr Pepper, and our cups are compatible with their brewers rather than made by them.
What is in the cup, per 8 oz brewed
“I tried the Choffy in the pods and also in the single serve bags. The bags leave a residue at the bottom of the cup. The pods give me a clean cup.”
Becky Holsopple · verified buyer, on the Variety Set single-serve cups
Where to start with the cups
Four roasts in one box, or go straight to the one most people settle on.
Choffy Brewed Cacao - Variety Set Single Serve Cups
Four estates in one box, so you find the roast you want before committing to a bulk count. Every cup is the same single ingredient.
Shop this
Ivory Coast Dark Choffy Brewed Cacao - Single Serve Choffy Cups
Ivory Coast Dark — smooth, round and cocoa-forward, and the one cup drinkers come back to.
Shop thisCacao pods, cups and brewers
Does cacao actually come in Keurig pods?
Yes. We make pre-filled single-serve cups of roasted, ground cacao in five varieties, in 12, 31 and 80 counts. They are compatible with Keurig® brewers — they are not made by Keurig and we are not affiliated with them.
Is this hot chocolate?
No. Hot chocolate is a mix you dissolve, and sugar is usually the first thing on its ingredient list. This is the bean itself, roasted and ground, brewed through a filter. It comes out unsweetened and tasting of dark chocolate rather than of a sweet drink. Add milk or sweetener if you want to — plenty of people do — but you are starting from a different place.
Can you brew a real cacao pod, the fruit?
No, and it is worth knowing why. The pod is a shell around seeds sitting in a wet pulp. Those seeds have to be fermented for several days, dried, roasted and ground before they taste of anything like chocolate. A fresh pod is a beautiful thing to open and it is not a drink. Fresh pods sell online for chocolate-making and teaching; if that is what you are after, buy from a fruit supplier.
Will it work in my brewer?
If your machine takes a standard single-serve cup, yes. Use the largest cup size your brewer offers and the strongest setting if it has one — cacao is less dense than coffee, so a longer, hotter pass gets more out of it. Some drinkers run two cups for one mug.
How many cups do I get?
The counts are on the box: 12, 31 or 80. The 31 and 80 counts are the ones the subscription runs on, at 12% off monthly, 10% every two months or 8% every three, with free shipping on every delivery. The 12 count is a one-time purchase.
Cups or bags — which should I buy?
Cups if you want it in ninety seconds with nothing to clean, which is most people on a weekday. Bags if you want the cheapest cup, more control over strength, or you are cooking with it. The bags work out cheaper per cup; the cups win on mornings.
From people who buy the cups
On-site review figures update themselves.
“We really enjoy the extra flavor depth of Choffy over coffee. The K cups are very convenient, too.”
“Every morning I use my Keurig machine to make a large cup of Choffy using 1 Volta Dark K Cup and 1 IC Dark K Cup plus 2 Stevia Packets and I know my day has started off right. Outstanding flavor combo !”
“Great product. Our office drinks Choffy every day. Good energy and a great taste. Kcups are easy to use and no mess. Thanks for making a coffee alternative.”
The bean, portioned
Same roasted cacao that goes in our bags, ground and sealed a cup at a time. Four estates, three roasts, and nothing added to any of them.
Shop the cups →