Years ago, when I wrote about new cafe openings every week, I had hot chocolates on a very regular basis. I love a good hot chocolate, but the hot chocolates I had then were rarely good. Recently, I haven’t been drinking much hot chocolate at all, so I hoped this taste test would be like my Suddenly 30 moment – after a disorientating journey to the future, I’d be greeted by a better world where everything was awesome.
The blind taste test involved 13 supermarket hot chocolates and seven friends. We made each hot chocolate based on the packet’s suggested recipe and scored them based on aroma, texture, taste and chocolatey-ness. I did have my Suddenly 30 moment, but not the way I wanted. Just like in the film, the future is far from awesome – it’s full of lies. Despite packets promising indulgence, organic cacao and products crafted by master chocolatiers and famous chefs, these hot chocolates are not made for adults. They’re more like milky soft drinks, the kind of quality that comes from vending machines at car washes and train stations.
By the end of the taste test, I had a mouth ulcer, an unstable gut and a partner telling me she’d never drink a hot chocolate again. “Humans can achieve greatness, why do we settle for this shit?” she said. Note, Oxfam Fairtrade Drinking Chocolate, Avalanche 99% Sugar Free Drinking Chocolate, Jarrah Classic Hot Chocolate and Jasper Drinking Chocolate were included but cut for brevity – none scored highly.
Pana Organic Hot Chocolate Drink Blend, 200g, $9 ($4.50 per 100g), available at major supermarkets: After drinking 13 hot chocolates – many of which tasted like Coco Pops milk, it would have been easy to forget what cocoa is actually made from: a fermented, bitter bean with an incredibly complex flavour and aroma profile. Pana was the only product we tasted which was a reminder of that fact. It was slightly bitter, complex, earthy and – I can’t believe I’m writing this – one of only two products to list cacao as the main ingredient (Three Blue Ducks was the other). Simply put, it was by far the most chocolatey product of the day. At the end of the taste test, when we’d done the brand reveal, one reviewer said something like: “This is easily the favourite but I think some people just won’t like this, it won’t be sweet enough.” I gave a nod, like a father who’s just seen their child accidentally boot a ball through their neighbours’ window. I hoped it conveyed both sadness and acceptance.
Cadbury Drinking Chocolate, 450g, $6 ($1.33 per 100g), available at major supermarkets: Many of the hot chocolates were too weak. This was the opposite, which was a good and a bad thing. The good: it was chocolatey. The bad: it’s intensely sweet (per 100g it contains 76g of sugar) and has a stale, woody smell. As one reviewer wrote, “Like an Easter egg you find in September.”
Grounded Pleasures Exquisite Original Drinking Chocolate, 200g, $9 ($4.5 per 100g), available at Harris Farm: After the taste test, when all the other reviewers had left, I did a secondary test. I gathered all the products that were accused of being too weak or boring and, inspired by the Milo recipe of every greedy child, I brewed them with a far more generous powder-to-milk ratio. My theory was some of the products, particularly this one, Three Blue Ducks and Jasper, had scored badly because of the stingy recipes on their packaging. I was right. All the reviewers’ descriptions – the burnt caramel aroma, the Milo-like flavour – were much more pronounced with a double dose of powder (Grounded Pleasures recommends two teaspoons a cup, which is nowhere near enough). I predict with a more generous recipe, this would have scored a six or seven. But even with the double dose, it still lacked the depth, bitterness and character of Pana. Despite the promises of this being an “exquisite” experience and with gold embossed font and cacao fruit illustrations on the box, the contents were only 37% cacao.
Vittoria Original Chocochino Drinking Chocolate, 375g, $5.20 ($1.39 per 100g), available at major supermarkets: This tastes like every average cafe hot chocolate you’ve ever had – not particularly chocolatey, or as one reviewer wrote “overly sweet and boring”. My guess is the weird sweet flavour comes from the ambiguous ingredient listed si
