Well, ‘tis the season and all that and Galaxy have released a new drinking chocolate.  That’s right – a drinking chocolate. Not a hot chocolate with added milk powder but a rich drinking chocolate.

This drinking chocolate has actually been specifically designed to melt quickly, disperse evenly and give a better drinking chocolate experience without whisks and other paraphernalia. You just heat milk, add the drinking chocolate and voila.

Regrettably this still has added milk so it isn’t just a pure chocolate like other drinking chocolate I have reviewed but it is creamy and sweetly delicious.  I used the recommended measured and heated the milk and it mixed in smoothly.  It is typically chocolaty and sweet as you would expect from Galaxy.

I think that if you don’t feel comfortable with the fancy hot chocolates like the Fortnum & Masons that I reviewed then this is the perfect middle step.  It is a hot chocolate made with milk but isn’t complicated with melting chocolate before adding hot milk so it makes it easier to create and mixes in smoothly.

As part of Chocolate Week events, Fortnum & Mason contacted me about some stuff and I volunteered to review their hot chocolate as part of my week focusing on hot chocolates.  I thought that there was no better way to finish off hot chocolate week than with a post about one of the poshest but most delightful retailers around – Fortnum & Mason.

F & M is a well-established department store in one of London’s poshest neighbourhoods and its competition is Harrods in many ways but unlike Harrods they don’t have mass tourist appeal and seem to attract a slightly different mid to top end consumer.

Too many people think Harrod’s is the be all and end all of posh shops.  They see anything with the logo as confirmation that you too are part of an elite club of people who shop at the poshest of shops.  I was always led to believe that Fortnum & Mason was among those upper echelons of quality and taste and I think if you check their chocolate section, hosting of the Academy of Chocolate awards ceremony and support of Chocolate Week (among other things) I think those of us in the know, know Fortnum & Mason is the poshest of the posh.

The stores are beautifully laid out with ornamentation that seems to keep the store in a perpetual state of Victorian splendour. Opened in the 1700’s, they have held a number of royal warrants over the years.  Their first dates back over 150 years as they were appointed the grocers to HRH the Prince of Wales however importantly they got their confectionary royal warrant in 1867.  I wonder what hot chocolate was like then…

What I am doing, though, is getting to try what the hot chocolate from a Royal Warrant holder tastes like.  I wonder if this is what the Queen or Prince Phillip have when there is a chill in the palace?  I wonder if Will and Kate drank this in front of a fire après ski?  Whatever royalty has enjoyed this before, I, Judith Lewis, chocolate blogger and online marketing chick, am enjoying this now.

The instructions are difficult to follow because they (somewhat generically) tell you to create a paste from the chocolate flakes with hot milk.  Now, I don’t know what I was meant to do with the marshmallows but it was nigh on impossible to get the flakes out without marshmallows in a measured way.  Abandoning the instructions and just doing what I could, I zapped some milk, added the flakes and a few marshmallows, whisked then zapped again and finally gave it a good long whisk.

This is a nice hot chocolate.  I have to reluctantly admit I focused less on the hot chocolate (which was lovely – among the best I’ve had in the last 15 I’ve tried) and more on the gloriously deep slide into my childhood where I used to add extra marshmallows from the Carnation Hot Chocolate.  I hated the envelopes because sometimes you only got a scant few marshmallows.  As I got older, I learned to ration my marshmallows to ensure every cup got a good large portion and I did here too but LOOK at how many GLORIOUS marshmallows I got in the mug!

The hot chocolate is actually really nice but suffers from the gotta-have-a-whisk syndrome as making a paste is really hard (I eventually tried it). The flavour is nice and clean without the chemical flavour I find some have, and the marshmallows are HUGE for tiny marshmallows.  All in all this is the perfect hot choccy for a cold night and I hope Wills & Kate got to enjoy it at their lodge après ski.

I had the good fortune of meeting up with the dynamic duo that is ‘Jaz and Jul’s’ from Jaz and Jules Hot Chocolate.  Creating a specialist product in a niche market isn’t easy and they have attacked it with energy and a great positive attitude.  They gave me a sample of their lemongrass and lime to try of the stand and sent me away with a complimentary sample of their gingerbread hot chocolate to try.

Now, the last time I tried a “Gingerbread” hot chocolate was the Hotel Chocolat Christmas collection 2010 and it didn’t last.  The warming ginger with the lovely hot chocolate just hit the spot when I was cold through the winder though I know it was too much for some.

Jaz & Juls have created an interesting blend with a quality chocolate and blended that chocolate with spices to create their Gingerbread Hot Chocolate.  According to the instructions they have me, I missed half the packet with 200mL of milk and whisked.  Thank goodness for that whisk from Kokoa Collection!

The chocolate varies in consistency from the powder to chunks and it is lovely and rustic.  It’s so much ful to see powder then chocolate chunks tumble into the milk.  So much fum from one mug of hot choc!

The hot chocolate (warm milk and chocolate) was interesting. It was very gingery but the chocolate was also very storng.  The ginger wasn’t too spicy hot and so it made for an extremely drinkable hot chocolate.  The chunks completely melted and thanks to my Kokoa Collection whisk, they were beautifully mixed. A uniquely different approach to hot choc!

In the next instalment of the hot chocolate drinking week, I was sent three different Steenbergs drinking chocolates – this one, a Christmas one and a plain one.  I decided to save the last two to review a bit later but wanted to share how interesting this was with you all now.

Steenbergs list themselves on the tin as tea merchants.  They are a family-run, friendly firm committed to Fairtrade, the environment and people. It was set up in 2003 by Axel and Sophie Steenberg in North Yorkshire.  In fact, the can is very large and most suitable for tea.  The bag of hot chocolate in the tin is in a clear cellophane bag and the hot chocolate is powdered into a fine powder.  Now, you can imagine my delight at this as the one thing I find a challenge without a whisk is a smooth mix.

This hot chocolate is made with milk and so I created my concoction with care and precision (I zapped the milk in the microwave and mixed the powder in as per the instructions… sort of).  I found this to have a significant link that was calmed slightly by the milk so each sip I took was ‘kapow’ on the chilli and then a gradual softening of the heat.

This is a really interesting chilli hot chocolate but with the additional spices this is likely more of a spiced hot chocolate with a hot chilli kick.  Besides sugar and chocolate it has organic ginger , organic cinnamon powder , organic chilli powder, organic allspice powder and organic clove powder . Drinkable with an immediate heat.

Having started in an era when leaving the chocolates to dry on the roof was OK, Charbonnel et Walker grew into an establishment with a royal warrant.  Having several owners over the last generation, the shop has strayed little from its core values. In the last few years, Charbonnel et Walker have introduced some new flavours of late and so I decided to give their real hot chocolate flakes a try.

Everyone seems to recommend a different way of creating hot chocolate.  Here, I’ve got my real chocolate flakes and I’m adding hot water to them before whisking in milk.  Well, actually, given that an impromptu meeting happened while I was making it I stirred it with a spoon as I couldn’t access the whisk but still, had I been able to I would have.

There is a different flavour to this flaked hot chocolate to others I have tried so far. There is a slight flavour I always associate with coconut and makes me wish for some tiny marshmallows.  My favourite ones are the dehydrated ones you get in powdered hot chocolate – nummy!

All in all though, this hot chocolate is a nice drink.  The hot water before the hot milk is a good way to make it as it creates a paste before you add the warm milk, meaning the chocolate is easier to mix in to create a smooth drink.  I think though despite that I’d still give it a bit of a whisk.  Not as sweet as the HOD hot chocolate but sweeter than others, this is extremely drinkable and dangerous as a topping for cappuccinos, ice cream, pie, cakes, etc

I’m a hot chocolate fan and yet I find that unless you get real chocolate and mix it in with milk it just doesn’t work.  There is something about real chocolate in hot milk that just creates something special.  Devnaa took that and went one further by joining a chai tea latte with a proper real chocolate hot chocolate to create this winter warming delight.

As you can see, this packaging follows the lovely Devnaa style.  I’m a big fan of it and so really excellent hot chocolate is just the icing on the cake.  But bringing my fav chai tea latte which I used to have with my mom and grandma when she was alive just brought flooding back all those memories from that time when she was alive and well and we used to go shopping together.

So much love and emotion is tied up in that memory that anything chai these days has to be special and it really has to stand out for me.  It can’t just have a little spice – it has to have that precise balance of ginger, cloves, cardamom and cinnamon and milk and flavour to really get me going.

The scent of the real chocolate flakes, when you open the box, waft forth with hints of cloves and cinnamon but nothing really overwhelming.  There is the hint of something more but not really anything definite.  I wasn’t sure if this subtlety was because I did not shove my nose in the chocolate of because of a weakness in the spice flavouring so I was pensive… was this just going to disappoint or was it going to fulfil the promise on the packet of a chai masala flavoured hot chocolate?  My grandmother is no longer with us and so it is a high bar to reach.

As I heated the milk then whisked in the hot chocolate, I again smelled the familiar spices coming through.  Sitting down and taking a deep breath through my nose as I drank the hot chocolate was divine. I was instantly back to the Starbucks with my mom and grandma and we were sitting and chatting as we waited for our chai tea latte to cool.

For me, this was more than just a delicious hot chocolate with just the right amount of chai flavouring – for me this was a memory of family.  This was more than just a mug of hot chocolate to me – it was a hug from my grandma before I left to go back to the UK.  While it might just be a lovely, lightly spiced mug of hot chocolate in milk to you with the right balance of cardamom and cloves balanced in with cinnamon and ginger, it’ll always be something more to me.

Thanks Devnaa for bringing my grandma back to me, even for the briefest of moments.

You know that 3pm slump that sometimes happen, especially if all you’ve had for lunch is a “light” Caesar salad and 2 slices of cheese (don’t judge – I’m trying to diet).  Well, I find it happens to me a lot and when you’re avoiding too much sugar (but not chocolate) it’s difficult to find something to nibble in the office that isn’t crisps/chips or biscuits/cookies.  So it was with some excitement that I opened the GIANT box from House of Dorchester containing two types of their hot chocolate.

The flakes I took out first because, frankly, I knew I could eat them without having to actually *make* the hot chocolate.  Oh don’t get me wrong – I did still make the hot chocolate, but I also sampled the hot chocolate flakes.  I sampled them carefully, first taking three pinches and a further two half teaspoons.  You know that guilty pleasure you get when you do something you’re not supposed to?  Ya – that was totally me

So I took 200mL of milk, zapped it in the microwave and added four teaspoons of hot chocolate. I still stand by the whisk as ideal for hot chocolate but here used a spoon.  I think the 2min is too long for the 200mL of milk though as I had a bit boil over so maybe I’ll go to 1min45sec to heat the milk next time.  The melt was pretty much almost instant and it mixed in well even without a whisk.

The taste is pretty nice.  It is a hot chocolate made with s mix of dark and milk chocolate so you get a combination of the sweet and slightly darker.  In all likelihood these flakes will have a broad appeal and be under more than just a few trees this holiday season.  The tin is reusable, it is nice and brightly coloured and that makes it easy to find your hot chocolate in a cluttered cupboard.  The hot chocolate isn’t Kokoa Collection or Soma but it isn’t trying to be,  It is a delightfully appealing hot chocolate which is going to have mass appeal both as a snack (like the Sir Hans Sloane beads) and as a hot chocolate.  This is a safe choice for the holidays or for yourself.

There is a theme you’ve likely noticed.  Well, two for this post.  One these is that I’ve been reviewing a lot of hot chocolates lately. The other is that despite fearing for my very life (or at least a disapproving look) I continue to create these unsolicited reviews.  Since the owner doesn’t allow unsolicited reviews I can only imagine that they have a picture of me somewhere in a back room and are ready to refuse me entry should they catch me.  Given I was not alone on my latest foray into the heart of maybe and silver interior design that I am sure is stylish somewhere, I must have passed under the radar.

Reviews on Google of Moroco are not glowing.  I have no idea who the other people are but they have not been enjoying their visits.  Ones main complaint was the artificial colours in the macarons.  How can I contain my shock and horror.  No… really… can’t you see…. OK I’m being sarcastic but it does help back me up that despite the attempt at being posh, people want more than leather covered menus and weird interior design.  There has to be style *and* substance.  So with this in mind, and my latest dangerous mission in progress, I tried the hot chocolate.

The hot chocolate is no subtle affair.  As you can see, it comes with a number of elements: a cup, a chocolate, a pot of hot chocolate and a glass of whipped cream.  I tried the hot chocolate straight first.  It was thick, dull and lacklustre.  Having recently tried other hot chocolates I can say this was dull and lifeless.  Worse it left an oily coating on my lips.  Yuck.  I added whipped cream to it.  I got some on my nose and looked like a clown.  I mixed it in.  Still no improvement.

This was oily, sickly sweet hot chocolate which I am sure is appealing to a great many people.  That kind of sweet and yet thick hot chocolate seems popular and the rather posh service I’m sure appeals to many.  I think that given there is Soma hot chocolate in the same city, they could actually become something more than just a kind of funky style boutique and both support local industry *and* sell the best hot chocolate around by bringing in Soma as the hot chocolate they werved.  It would remain expensive but this time, there would be a top notch hot chocolate behind the price.

Moroco Chocolat have some good ideas in a great location but the quality is suffering.  If they would change out the lower quality Valrhona even for a higher quality they would immediately up the ante in the quality chocolate stakes by offering style *and* substance.

I had the great fortune of finally meeting the folks behind the UK Zotter personality I had been communicating with on Twiter.  Zotter is a crazy fun company with wacky ways of approaching chocolate.  They have hand scooped bars, crazy flavours and fun artwork.

One of their offerings is the hot chocolate.  They have several different flavours and I walked away with five.  Five is an odd number when you think about it and they do have six in a box but I was special and they gave me one of each flavour they had and I’ve tried three.  Now, before you get upset, consider that I have had 3 already, among others, and think about how much I have sacrificed for my blog.  I have had enough chocolate and hot chocolate to make most people sick and yet I continue to selflessly eat and blog

So I chose three different flavours.  Well, when I say I chose I suppose I should say rather that fate and artwork chose for me.  First I thought the puppies were cute.  Then I randomly grabbed one and then I thought the squirrel was cute.  So there you have my keen educated palette up against puppies, a squirrel and the fickle hand of fate.  But come on!  Who can resist puppies?!?

So… to the puppies! Errrr… hot chocolate.  OK so the puppies flavour was milk and of course, because puppies are cute that was the first one I tried.  The puppies flavour was interesting.  You use around 200mL of very hot milk and whisk.  I just don’t think stirring a lot is going to cut it here.  The puppies bring us a flavour that is sweet and chocolaty but a lot lighter than I usually make my own hot chocolate.  I cut the chocolate up so it would melt more readily and it seemed to be fine. The melt was very fast, the hot chocolate was delicious and it was super easy to make.  Not like drinking a bar of chocolate but like a sweet, milky hot chocolate.  I’d probably use more milk and 2 bars

Next I had the Bourbon Vanilla.  This is a white chocolate hot chocolate with an awful lot of what looks like little vanilla seeds in the chocolate.  When I made this hot chocolate there was a darkening of the colour of the milk and there was an absolutely distinct flavour of vanilla.  There’s no escaping my dislike of extreme vanilla and white chocolate here but it is going to be perfect for those who enjoy vanilla and/or white chocolate.  This is going to be someone’s idea of heaven.

Lastly I tried the squirrel nut hot chocolate.  I think of the three this is the most like a chocolate.  I was a bit sad, however, that of the three this one was exactly like a praline chocolate and readers of this blog will know that I’m not the world’s biggest fan of pralines.  It is, however, just like drinking a liquid praline chocolate and I know that a lot of people love pralines.  You can curl up with a hot mug of pralines and drink a warm cup of yummy cuddles on a cold day.  What more can you ask for in a mug of hot chocolate (if you’re a praline lover)?

So all in all the hot chocolates I tried were yummy and will appeal directly to people who like that particular type of chocolate – milk, white or praline. They are brilliantly suited to the chocolate on the wrapper

I had the very special honour and pleasure to meet the genius behind this new coffee shop hot chocolate.  Kokoa Collection is attempting to bring proper hot chocolate to our local independent coffee establishments.  Long have I scorned these hot chocolate in coffee shops as powdery and low quality (although at times fun with whipped cream and chocolate bits!) and Kokoa Collection is precisely what I feel is needed.

Using small disks of chocolate, this real chocolate sold by origin is added to steamed milk, whisked, and in an instant faster than I thought possible you get an actual gourmet hot chocolate.  Now, while this is sold with terms such as “white” “milk” and “dark” with a mention of origin, what we have here is an extraordinary hot chocolate made with different percentages of chocolate.

I’m going to sound very gushing in this review and it isn’t because I was fed 3 cappuccino cups of hot chocolate.  It is because you experience some of the best that a bean has to offer despite this being a hot chocolate.  The hot chocolate is delicious and develops and changes from the chocolate eaten ‘raw’.

I started with the 58% Venezuelan. This was a delightful chocolate with interesting slightly fruity notes that I really enjoyed.  It was lovely and I have to admit it was really extremely typical of chocolate from this region.  It still retained its distinctive flavour and yet was a hot chocolate – BLOW MY MIND!  They called this a “milk chocolate” because of the lower cocoa content but it has no added milk – it’s just lighter and sweeter.  I’d eat the chocolate on its own and I’d for sure buy this as a hot chocolate!

I then moved on to the Ecuador 70% which was AWESOME.  It was everything I love in an Arriba Nacional bean and yet it was a hot chocolate.  There was my delightful fruit intense and washing through my palette and yet something more woody and herbal was struggling just though where usually it would be overwhelmed by the chocolate.  Unbefuckingleviable!  This is a premium hot chocolate and I can’t wait to be able to buy this in my local coffee shop.

I then tried the Madagascar 82% and after the Ecuador this was awesome.  The red fruits were explosive – even more so than the Madagascar and the rich chocolate brownie flavour was absolutely perfect.  It was still sweet enough to enjoy and yet the chocolate had an intensity of flavour that I can’t imagine you’ll find anywhere else.

This hot chocolate was divine.  I hope that it is sold somewhere I can buy it again soon.  I think they are going to have home packs and I have some more samples to try but I will be GUTTED if I am unable to buy a LOT more and regularly in a coffee shop.  This was amazing and I wish I could share how amazing it was with everyone in more than just words.  I hope that you can see from the descriptions that this is one of the best hot chocolates I’ve had since Soma and since it is completely different to Soma it is the same kind of awesomeness.  This is a quality hot chocolate which is such high quality it is in a class of its own.  It’s on par with the hot chocolate from Askinosie (when they did chocolate drop hot chocolate) and exceeds most others I have tried.

I hope this is widely available soon – and when it is get some of each – you won’t regret it!