Food
Drinking chocolate
Introduction
We put 10 drinking chocolate powders to the taste test.
Hot chocolate drinks are great winter warmers, listed and priced along with espresso coffees in cafés. The best way to make one at home is to melt hot chocolate in milk, but simply stirring in a powder is quicker and cheaper.
More than 200 home testers trialled the drinking chocolates - and three products topped the tasting.
Our home trial
The drinking chocolates were blind-tasted by 201 home testers. Each received three coded samples and prepared the drinks following manufacturers’ instructions.
They rated the taste and strength, then reported adjustments they made to improve the chocolate. They gave an overall rating and said whether they would buy the product. See the tasting results to find out how they rated the drinking chocolates.
Products tasted:
- Cadbury Drinking Chocolate
- Green & Black's Organic Hot Chocolate Drink
- Hansells Drinking Chocolate
- Home Brand Drinking Chocolate Instant
- Jarrah Choc O'Lait
- Jarrah Chocolatté Frothy Twist
- Trade Aid Organic Drinking Chocolate
- Vittoria Dark Chocochino
- Vittoria Original Chocochino
- WeightWatchers Drinking Chocolate
Just add water – or milk
Once, you started from scratch with a spoon of cocoa powder then added boiling water, sugar and milk.
The drinking chocolates in our home trial come with sugar added and the tasters needed to add hot milk or water (we didn’t provide marshmallows).
Triallists preferred the products made with milk. The three products made with water contained milk powder but some triallists couldn’t resist adding milk. Hansells Drinking Chocolate gives the option of preparing it with water or milk (it contains milk powder). So half the people who tried it prepared the drink with hot water and the rest prepared it with milk. The milk drink was a favourite.
The verdict
Top chocs
The three top ranking products
Three chocolates led the overall rankings and were top-rated for taste and strength.
Vittoria Original Chocochino and Vittoria Dark Chocochino were among the more reasonably priced products at 36 or 38 cents per serving. Triallists found the Original Chocochino “smooth and creamy” . The Dark Chocochino had a “satisfying real chocolatey taste”.
At around 50 cents per mug Trade Aid Organic Drinking Chocolate was the second most expensive. As a fair trade product it supports cocoa and sugar co-operative farmers in developing countries by paying higher prices for their produce. “A rich and satisfying chocolate drink” commented a member.
Sweetness
Most of these drinking chocolates contain lots of sugar. One in five of those who tried Cadbury Drinking Chocolate or Vittoria Original Chocochino commented on their sweetness.
But perceptions didn’t always match the actual content. Trade Aid Organic Drinking Chocolate, which had the highest sugar content per serving, attracted comments from only three people. Products with the lowest sugar content, WeightWatchers and the two Jarrah products, contained artificial sweetener.
Strength
Vittoria Dark Chocochino had the strongest chocolate flavour, followed by Vittoria Original Chocochino, Trade Aid Organic Drinking Chocolate, Green & Black’s Organic Hot Chocolate Drink and Cadbury Drinking Chocolate.
Three or more heaped teaspoons of chocolate were recommended for a serving, with the exception of Trade Aid Organic which specified two to three heaped teaspoons. The two weakest drinks, WeightWatchers Drinking Chocolate and Home Brand Drinking Chocolate, recommended two teaspoons.
Some home testers found adding chocolate powder made the drink sweeter without increasing the flavour.
Tasting results
Results from our drinking chocolates home tasting:
Guide to the table
Our trial used 201 home testers. Each product was tried by around 60 people.
- Price per serve is based on a price survey druing May 2009 and the number of servings per pack claimed on the label.
- Overall score is the average of the overall scores awarded by the tasters.
- Sugar is the number of teaspoons per serving, based on nutrition information on the label (4g = 1 level teaspoon). It doesn't include additional sugar (lactose) from added milk. A = also contains artificial sweetener (asparatame).
Report by Bev Frederikson.