16/06/2026
Today is Bloomsday, which makes me think of drinking chocolate.
In Ulysses, Joyce mentions two kinds: shell cocoa and Epps’s Soluble Cocoa. Both would have been familiar in Dublin at the turn of the 20th century.
🍫 Shell Cocoa — what we would now call cacao tea — was very much a working-class drink. Made from the roasted cacao husk, it was often prepared with homemade oatmeal milk when dairy was beyond the household budget.
🍫 Epps’s Soluble Cocoa was one of the leading branded cocoas at the time, marketed as a nourishing beverage.
Now Cacao tea has returned as a premium, sustainable drink, while oat milk has moved from necessity to choice.
The more things change, the more they stay the same. 🍫📚 👵
The one in the photo is made locally in Cork by Pure Notions Chocolate & Coffee Ltd.
