Cold cocoa (chocolate) drink is highly in demand in tropical countries, especially in the cocoa-producing regions. Due to a relatively high fat content and a strong structure of cocoa powder particle, the solubility of cocoa powder in a relatively low temperature of water is low. A method that can create easily dissolved powder in relatively low temperature of water is highly desired by cocoa beverage producers. The objective of this study was to investigate the performance of a laboratory-scale steam jet agglomerator that was used to produce instanised cocoa drink powder with a higher solubility. In this study, two experimental variables, namely drying duration and stabiliser/sweetener addition, were used. Three drying durations, namely 4, 6 and 8 h, were applied. Cocoa powder (60%) was mixed with maltodextrin (40%). For other samples, cocoa powder (55%) was mixed with a sweetener (45%). Sucrose, coconut sugar and mixture of sucrose and coconut sugar was used as sweeteners. The results showed that the solubility of the cocoa powder mixed with coconut sugar was the highest. All samples exhibited good flowability and cohesiveness. The fineness modulus of the agglomerated samples was higher than that of the raw ingredients. The colour of the cocoa drink powders formulated with maltodextrin had propensity to be the brightest. In addition, samples with maltodextrin exhibited significantly low moisture content. The results presented that steam jet agglomerator has potential to improve the most important quality parameters of the cocoa drink powder.
