Adding sucrose improved the reconstitution process of powdered cocoa beverage (PCB). However, high amount of sucrose is undesirable from a nutritional perspective. This study aimed to understand the impact of sucrose reduction on the powder and reconstitution properties of powdered cocoa malted beverage (PCMB), which has a different ingredient composition and processing method from previously studied PCB. Five PCMB powder samples were prepared with their sucrose levels successively reduced from 20% to 0%. Powder properties (particle size distribution, bulk density) and reconstitution properties (wettability, dispersibility, solubility, rate of reconstitution) of the PCMB powders were investigated. Novel methods to measure the reconstitution of PCMB were also developed because the standard methods were incompatible with PCMB. Sucrose reduction was found to significantly increase particle size, wetting time and overall reconstitution time. It influenced wettability to the largest extent, and wetting appeared to be the rate-determining step of PCMB powder reconstitution process. (C) 2019 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.