Cocoa taste test: Sainsbury's Cocoa, Cadbury's, Tesco Indulgent Drinking Chocolate

 

The Cadbury's hot chocolate is flexible and stands up well. It is milky and easy drinking. The Sainsbury's Cocoa, even with a spoon of sugar, tasted a little bitter, and a little powdery. We liked it the least. I was impressed by the Tesco Drinking Chocolate, and that, for me, was the clear winner. Good chocolate flavour. Good body. It tasted smooth, chocolatey and indulgent. Not too sweet - you can add your own sugar to personal taste. I like that. 

In order: 

1st - Tesco Indulgent Drinking Chocolate 

2nd - Cadbury 

3rd - Sainsbury's Cocoa 

Date: Feb 2021 

Cocoa taste test: Sainsbury's Cocoa, Van Houten, and Cadbury

 

All three of these are cocoa powders. Van Houten's is the original Dutch process cocoa. Sainsbury's Cocoa is made in Amsterdam. It could well be made by Van Houten, though it looks darker. Cadbury's is the only one to have added ingredients, and is around 50% sugar.  

Cadbury's tastes like milk chocolate. Which is odd because there is no milk powder in the ingredients. All three were made the same way, with the same amount of fresh milk. Yet, it does taste like liquid milk chocolate. It is the least complicated of the three. The one that is most familiar and comforting. It suprised me how well it stands up to the others. You can spot the difference straight away, but though it is different, that's not in itself a weakness - just a difference. Like the difference between Paul McCartney and John Lennon. Lennon is without a doubt the more interesting, but also the more demanding and challenging. On the whole Lennon is more rewarding, worthwhile, and significant. But sometimes a McCartney song will have the greater appeal. The Dutch cocoa powders are John Lennon, while Cadbury's is Paul McCartney. Van Houten's has extra flavours and complexities which make it the more interesting. Sainsbury's cocoa is more robust. It's more straightforwardly chocolatey, edging to the dark chocolate, but not too dark.  It perhaps lacks some of the subtle complexities and flavours of the Van Houten. 

They each have their appeals, and I have learned a new respect for the Cadbury, which does taste quite smooth and velvety next to the rougher Dutch powders (and what I found worked really well, was a blend of Van Houten and Cadbury to combine the smoothness of the Cadbury's with the more interesting flavours of the Van Houten). 

In order: 

1st: Van Houten

2nd; Sansbury's

3rd: Cadbury's 

Van Houten's Cacao

 

This is an old tin of Van Houten's that we bought in Amsterdam last time we were there. It still tastes great. This is just chocolate powder. No sugar. No milk. No other ingredients. This is Dutch chocolate. Van Houten invented a process for removing the bitterness from chocolate, but retaining the flavour, by adding an alkaline salt to the cocoa mass - it's called the Dutch process. His father had developed a press that removed a large amount of cocoa butter, producing a cake of cocoa solids that could be broken up into powder. This forms the basis of all today's chocolate making, either for chocolate bars or for drinking. 

This is proper drinking chocolate, though can also be used for baking. That's why it's just called cocoa. It's very flexible. 

It's a mild chocolate drink with a lot of character. There's no sugar or other ingredients, so it can be a little bitter on its own for some tastes. We like to add a spoon of sugar per mug. 

Good stuff. 

Date: Feb 2021   Score:  7 1/2 

Various recommended hot chocolates

 

Hot Chocolate taste tests appear to be very popular. It seems that every magazine and newspaper has done one! I've got a great idea for a feature, chief - how about a hot chocolate taste test? 

Anyway, here's a random selection: 

BBC:
Best Hot Chocolate Test Test

 Independent:
10 Best Hot Chocolates

  

Mirror:
Best Hot Chocolate Brands

 

Recommended Buys:
Best Instant Hot Chocolate

Good Housekeeping:
Hot Chocolate Does it Have to Be Cadbury? 

Olive Magazine:

Who Makes the Best Hot Chocolate?

Cadbury Hot Chocolate Original

 

I was expecting something a bit more from one of Britain's most popular hot chocolates. But then, Cadbury's became popular in the 1800s for using more milk in their chocolate than other brands, so they were always about the low cost popularity rather than the quality (milk is cheaper than chocolate). Cadbury's has always been about making products that are easy to consume and have the widest appeal - that is, the products that have the least character, or are the blandest. In this case, it's about sweetness. Sugar is cheaper than chocolate - it bulks out the product, and makes it widely appealing. All chocolate seems to have some amount of sugar in it. By itself chocolate is quite bitter and intense. Milk and sugar are what make it palatable. And some like it darker (more chocolate, less milk and sugar) than others. I'm fairly flexible, though tend to have a preference for a balanced chocolate, moderately sweet, with some milk, not too dark. This hot chocolate is very sweet. So sweet it's like drinking sugared water with some chocolate flavouring. That's not balanced. It's way too much sugar. Yes, there is some chocolate flavour, but it's in the background. 

Cadbury's is something of a British institution - Creme Eggs, Roses, Dairy Milk, Bournville Plain, and of course the Hot Chocolate. Everyone in Britain has been brought up on Cadbury's chocolates, and will be familiar with them; and most people are aware of the Bournville village, which Cadbury's had built for the factory workers, as was standard in Victorian times, though forbade alcohol to be sold anywhere in the village. Cadbury's is now owned by the American company Mondelez, which was split off from the Kraft company, famous for its processed cheese slices. However, the Bournville chocolate factory is still there, and the inhabitants of the Bournville village are still mostly workers at the factory. Despite the names "garden" and "model" village, only the managers lived in the mock Tudor houses usually shown in pictures, the workers lived in modest square boxes. 

Typical Bournville workers houses

Even though this is a sugary hot chocolate, we like it. It's pleasant, easy drinking, with enough chocolate to make it reasonably satisfied. It's not a great hot chocolate, but is quite acceptable, especially if you like sweet hot chocolate. 

Ingredients: Sugar, Cocoa Powder, Acidity Regulator (Potassium Carbonates), Flavouring, Cocoa Solids: 25 % minimum

Price is around £3 for 500g

Date:: Feb 2021   Score: 4 

Lidl Deluxe Salted Caramel Flavour Hot Chocolate

 

Oooh. We like this. Proper hot chocolate that you make with milk. It's hardly less instant than making it with hot water. With instant hot chocolate you put water in the kettle, warm it up then pour it on the powder and stir. With proper hot chocolate you put milk in a jug, warm it up in the microwave then pour it on the powder and stir. Takes the same amount of time. The only downside is cleaning up the jug afterwards. 

With coffee, beer and wine I prefer my drinks to be unadulterated - that is I don't like additional flavourings to be added. Coffee beans have a distinctive flavour from their country of origin, from a region in that country, from their altitude in that region, etc. Adding flavourings conceals the singular character and flavour of the individual coffee bean. Similar with wine. And with beer, there are so many wonderful flavours, both subtle and obvious that can be derived from the basic ingredients of kilned malts, yeast, local water, and hops that adding flavourings (like chocolate) seems totally absurd and misguided. However, perhaps because I've not yet come to a full understanding of the nature of the chocolate bean and the making of chocolate, I have never had a problem with flavourings being added to chocolate. Indeed, I like the combination of flavours with chocolate - chilli, nuts, fruit, or - as here - salted caramel. Chocolate seems to invite added flavours. Yes, it can be consumed on its own, and can be quite delightful, but it really takes off when mixed with other ingredients. 

This salted caramel addition really works for me. It doesn't counterpoint the chocolate, more it blends with and enhances it.   

The main ingredient is sugar with 36% cocoa. Gives it enough chocolate flavour, and when made with milk, it is rich, silky and indulgent. 

Date: Feb 2021   Score: 8 

***

Lidl Tea & Coffee

Lidl Bellarom Instant Hot Chocolate

 

95p for 400g from our local Lidl. That's cheap. You need 4-5 heaped teaspoons, and even then it tastes watery. There is a smoothness about it that is attractive, and a vague milky, sort of Galaxy, chocolate flavour. I mean, it's not bereft of chocolate, despite the low price and low cocoa content (12% of fat reduced cocoa), so for the price is sort of acceptable. 

Lots of whey powder in the ingredients

We tried it as per the instructions, though what we have found with most instant hot chocolates is that they are better made with milk rather than water (more body and smoothness and indulgence) or by adding cocoa powder (more chocolate flavour, bitterness - depending on the cocoa powder added, and character) or a mix of both. Sometimes, just to make it easy ("instant") I turn on the kettle, scoop in three spoonfuls of some instant chocolate (whatever brand is handy - the cheaper the better), and a generous spoonful of cocoa powder (adjust according to personal taste and experience and brand), then pour on the very hot water, stir, then add in some cold milk, and then perhaps a squirt of aerosol cream, topped with some chocolate sprinkles. Wonderful. If you're going to warm up the milk, you might as well make a proper hot chocolate - though even then a spoonful of instant chocolate can add to the richness of the finished chocolate.  

Anyway. This is not a great instant hot chocolate. Certainly not something to drink as per the instructions. But at the price can be used to bolster and add smoothness to a proper hot chocolate, or as the base for an instant hot chocolate with some cocoa powder added. 

Date: Feb 2021    Score: 3 1/2 

***

Lidl Tea & Coffee