I have a rather medieval habit of waking up in the dead of night, getting out of bed and roaming the rooms of our home. It isn’t exactly Rebecca floating across the bay windows of Manderley, but you get the idea. The habit of sleeping all the night through to wake in the morning is a relatively new one. From the early Middle Ages to the Industrial Revolution, people would go to bed just after sundown, sleep for a good 4 to 6 hours , wake for an hour or two to say Matins, ruminate or just have sex and then get another 2 to 3 hours of sleep before having to herd the sheep, or paint the chapel, or whatever it is the Medievals did.
There is a calmness to the dead of night and the first weak light of the sun that follows it that I enjoy tremendously. The worries of the day before seem smaller as the dawn brings hope in things renewed. And then there is cocoa. I’m not talking of the bagged sweetened powders ready to be poured into a steaming glass of milk or (God forbid) water, but of the properly assembled mix of roasted cacao powder, sugar and milk. Forget those Godiva tins, those Fortnum sachets and buy yourself some very basic Van Houten cocoa powder. It should be the same thing you put into cakes, bitter, witout a trace of sugar or filler, just plain fine powder.
I’ll give you my recipe, but this is really just the way I like to drink my cocoa. You may find you like it sweeter, or maybe you want it aphrodisiacally bitter, or with a little cinnamon added. Whatever rocks your bed, embrace it. And do yourself a favour! Do not at any time! Ever! Make your cocoa with water. The result is an insipid, limpid swamp not worth feeding to a pauper.
One dessert spoon of caster sugar into the bottom of your mug. 
One and a half dessert spoons of cocoa powder added in. 
Stir to mix and work some of the lumps out of the cocoa powder. Don’t bother to sieve the cocoa, it’s really not necessary. 
Add a very small amount, just about one dessert spoon full of boiling hot water and stir. 
And stir some more. Vigorously, but not so hard you beak a sweat and need a shower. 
Squeeze the paste against the walls of the mug to remove all the lumpy bits that have formed. Just imagine you’re giving the Sistine chapel a new lick of paint. 
And there you are. A smooth paste, ready to be transformed into delicious cocoaness. 
You have removed the spring of the thing. Otherwise you’ll end up with foam and no drink. 
Top as high as the Nespresso Gods will allow and heat it up. 
Pour all into your mug. 
At first it’s just hot milk, but then, like the loins of the lone monk in his cell, things are beginning to stir. 
Beautiful, frothy, chocolate goodness to send you back to Hypnos’ arms.
The early light cocoa, the one consumed just before dawn, sends me back to sleep most efficiently. In fact, my mug is empty now and my eyes will hardly stay open, so I will bid you goodnight.
Planes, Trains & Anchovies 