My understanding, based on a detailed tumbler post that I don't seem to have bookmarked, is that using coffee and chocolate to describe the skin color of characters has multiple faults. One, it's a cliche--and so are honey, brown sugar, caramel, etc. Two, it fetishizes, reducing the character to the skin color like there's nothing more. And three, it smacks of colonialism--those were two of the main crops made profitable by slave labor.
People of color have made it clear they find being compared to food items offensive, so even if a white writer thinks of a great, original food comparison that they think is flattering, it's best not to do it. When a write writer chooses to compare a white character to peaches and cream--or home-made pizza dough, or marzipan, or the foam on a beer--it's not the most apt, either. (My sister and both my kids are the approximate blue-tinged white of fat-free milk, but they don't care for the comparison.)
What you can do is use color names that don't offend, for any color of skin. The names of spices, herbs, animals, minerals, and plants or blossoms are generally inoffensive.
Without signs the character is not white, readers' minds default to "white character," so you do need to work in clear indicators the character is a person of color in other ways. This can include speech patterns and vocabulary, fashion, hair, facial features, how they decorate their homes, and anything else you might use to describe and illuminate any character. What's important is to make your character of color a whole, rounded character, not a token about whom we can envision only the exact skin color, right?
Maryn, kind of strawberry yogurt color before you mix in the fruit at the bottom