'Mocha mousse' makes its move

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Newer, warmer shade of brown represents what cozy comfort is all about

Move over, grey. Take a back seat, millennial pink. There’s a new colour trend in town, and designers say it marks a shift away from the stark interiors of recent years toward something warmer, deeper and more luxurious. Meet “mocha mousse,” Pantone’s colour of the year for 2025.

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For the uninitiated, mocha mousse isn’t quite your grandma’s chocolate brown. As Pantone explains it, it’s “a warming, brown hue imbued with richness. It nurtures us with its suggestion of the delectable qualities of chocolate and coffee, answering our desire for comfort.” Given that many of us could use a bit of cozy comfort these days, it’s not surprising that a colour with that quality caught the eyes of Pantone’s tastemakers.

Those in the design industry also pinpoint the colour’s earthiness—a distinct change from the huge expanses of white marble in many high-end kitchens built in the last decade or so. Reen-Ann McBean is the general manager of the Ottawa showroom of Cosentino, a Spanish-based manufacturer of engineered stone surfaces. She says the mocha mousse trend is part of an overall rising demand for more natural, less futuristic aesthetic.

She recommends the Château Brown shade of her company’s durable Silestone product as a mocha mousse option for countertops and backsplashes. Pink-copper and bronze veining gives the shade depth and richness,

McBean says. “It’s almost as though there are layers in there,” she notes of the product, which is made from a blend of natural and recycled materials bound together with a resin. “It’s got a lot of texture.”

Those veins may raise a related question if you’re considering a Château Brown topper for your new kitchen island: What hardware finishes work well with this newly popular colour?

For McBean, the sky is really the limit when choosing fixtures to complement the mocha mousse surface. “It lends itself to so many different possibilities. Because of the depth of the design, you can almost pull anything that you want to out of it,” she says. Copper could work well, as could bronze or even black. And if you can’t decide, don’t be afraid to mix and match.

“There was a time when you would never put gold and silver fixtures [together] in your space, whereas now, that’s almost championed,” she notes.

Countertops and backsplashes aren’t the only places where you can add some mocha mousse pizzazz to your kitchen. Cabinets, flooring and chair coverings are other elements where the shade works well.

If your budget doesn’t run to a complete kitchen overhaul, you could add some rich brown tea towels, placemats or upholstered chairs.

So far, mocha mousse appliances are rare to non-existent, perhaps because manufacturers have been forever scarred by the avocado-green ovens and harvest-gold refrigerators of the 1970s. However, that doesn’t mean new trends in appliances don’t dovetail nicely with the trendy colour.

After several decades of stainless-steel dominance, matte white, matte black and platinum glass appliances are making a comeback—but with a 21st-century twist, McBean says.

For instance, the GE Café line of major appliances features a wide range of finishes for its handles, knobs and other hardware, including brushed black, brushed bronze and brushed copper—  all of which would work well with mocha mousse. Other manufacturers offer similar finishes for faucets, cabinet pulls and other kitchen hardware.

While kitchens are among the most popular rooms to introduce mocha mousse, it’s a colour that you can play with throughout your house, says McBean. For instance, she says her Château Brown Silestone can be used on shower walls to create an opulent, spa-like vibe.

If you’re not quite ready to take the leap to a mocha mousse kitchen, there are other areas of your house where you can test out the shade with less of a long-term commitment.

Designer Kristyn Gerth, founder and creative director of Montreal-based Oak + Ash Interiors, recommends trying out mocha mousse in an office or guest room.

“Given its rich nature, mocha mousse is a beautiful choice for colour drenching a space,” she says. Colour drenching involves painting everything in a room—from walls and trim to ceilings and furniture—in the same hue.

Doing this with mocha mousse “strikes a really nice balance of adding a rich hit of colour but still in a calming tone, adding drama in a subtle way,” Gerth explains. “It’s pretty, but not overly feminine.”

If painting an entire room in this deep tone doesn’t appeal, you could use the colour for an eye-catching accent wall. In a bedroom, drapes, duvet covers and other soft furnishings could pick up the hue.

In a living room, a mocha mousse sofa or chair would pop with the addition of a couple of accent pillows or throws in a complementary shade, such as cream or soft green. The goal is to keep things earthy, natural and relaxed. After all, isn’t that what cozy comfort is all about?