Sainsbury's Orange Flavour Hot Chocolate

 

Decent stuff.  Two spoonfuls in a mug of hot milk. Lovely. Mainly orange flavour, but with a good meld of milky chocolate. It's kind of like those Club Orange biscuits, but without the biscuit, and liquid and warm. Yes. Nice. I could drink this again. Perhaps not for when you want a proper hot chocolate, but for those times when you want something a little different. Good for Christmas for those of us who associate oranges with Christmas. I certainly do. Oranges were a treat when I was little. And on Christmas morning I would wake up with a stocking on my bed, and at the bottom would always be an orange or tangerine. Ah. Memories....


Date: Nov 2021   Score: 7

***

Sainsbury's own label

Galaxy Vegan Instant Silky & Smooth Drink

 

Vegan recipe in that there is no intended milk or milk products in the jar, however there is a warning on the jar that the product was made in a factory with milk products, so some milk traces may be present. 

It certainly is smooth - some may say oily (we do). There is some chocolate flavour here, but not much. It sort of tastes like corn mush or well coked veg. There is a sort of not-quite-right flavour to this. It's drinkable, but not entirely enjoyable - at times it tastes like warm vegetable oil (like Mazda) mixed with a little cooking chocolate. 

The main ingredients are: Sugar, Maltodextrin,  Dried Glucose Syrup, Fat Reduced Cocoa Powder (10%), Coconut Oil, Soya Protein. 

We won't be drinking this on its own again, but shall use it in blends to see if that works. 


Date: Oct 2021    Score: 2 

Lindt Hot Chocolate

 

Cocoa, sugar, and 8% Lindt chocolate. It's smooth and pleasant, but lacks depth and is a little sweet. Quite drinkable, but at the top end for price, even for a brand name hot chocolate. £4.00 for 300g from Tesco (£1.34 per 100g). There are some more expensive, but Twinings is £1.15 per 100g and Cadburys is 80p; while Tesco own brand is 40p. 

Meh. Not one we'll be buying again at that price, unless they bump up the chocolate content and give it more oomph.  

Date: Oct 2021   Score: 4 

Oxo Meat-Free Beef Flavour

 

Oxo is a beef tea, along with Bovril. It was developed in the late 1800s. The cube is crumbled into a mug and hot water poured on. There are, thankfully, veggie versions now. Bovril was made into a veggie version, but after some protests the liquidised remains of young cows was restored to the product. A form of beef tea can also be made from Marmite - which has always been veggie - but that doesn't work as good. 

I can remember my first Oxo beef tea. I was a child, probably about eight years old, and I'd come home from playing quite cold and wet because we'd been caught in the rain. My mother made a mug of Oxo, and put in pieces of bread. I quite liked the bread soaked in Oxo, but it was the drink that really excited me, and I can remember wanting to drink more of the juice, and regretting that my mother had put so much bread in the mug! 

This modern veggie Oxo is delightful. Just salty enough. Very savoury and satisfying. 

Date: Oct 2021    Score: 7 

Costa Hot Chocolate Rich & Creamy

 

Bought from Tesco where it is normally £3 for 300g, but is reduced to £2 if you have a Clubcard (which I do). There are little lumps of powder floating on the surface which I couldn't stir away, so points deducted for that - probably due to the bulking agents they add to give the "Rich & Creamy" texture. Yes, it is smooth, but it's also surprisingly bland. There is some chocolate flavour in here, but it is a characterless chocolate which is rather dwarfed by the sugar and the "creaminess". 

This sort of sits between cocoa/hot chocolate and instant hot chocolate/drinking chocolate - it's not pure cocoa because it has sugar and thickeners and junk in it, but it's not instant hot chocolate because it doesn't have milk powder in it. If you're going to make your hot chocolate drink with milk, then use a cocoa powder, and add your own sugar. It's not brain science, and you end up with a drink that is tailored to your own taste, and way, way cheaper, and doesn't contain garbage chemicals. 

Though it has the Costa brand name on it, the chocolate is made by AllAboutFood Ltd, who do similar things for other brand names. Well, looking at their website, it appears they don't make the chocolate - they just do the branding. It appears that they commission the products from other companies, as their team are creatives rather than manufacturers. They are sort of middle men. Ho hum. So, I wonder who does make this? Possibly Aimia Foods, who specialise in this sort of thing. 

In short: drinkable, but bland and full of chemicals. And too expensive due to paying too many companies who are not actually involved in making the chocolate. 

Date: Sept 2021   Score: 4 

Nestle Nesquick Hot Chocolate

 

Soft, milky, gently sweet, creamy. Some mild chocolate flavour. Easy drinking. More for kids than adults, but quite likeable if not expecting a proper hot chocolate.

Date: Aug 2021    Score: 3 1/2 

Twinings Swiss Chocolate Drink

 

Sweet, easy drinking, some chocolate flavour, a little wishy-washy. It's a pleasant drink, but lacks character and depth of flavour, and much of the pleasure is carried by the sugar rather than the chocolate. This is an instant chocolate but without the milk powder, so you have to add your own milk. If you're doing that, you might as well have a proper hot chocolate and add your own preferred level and type of sweetness. 

We tried blending this with an instant hot chocolate, but the result of that was to weaken the instant hot chocolate, even though made with all milk,  so the result was not good. When blended with proper hot chocolate there is greater depth of flavour and body, but a lot of hot chocolate has to be added. 

Current cost is around £4 for 350g, which, given that you have to add your own milk, and the finished product is a bit wimpy, doesn't represent good value for money. 

But it's each to their own, and some may like  its sweet, easy drinking nature. 

Website: Twinings Swiss Chocolate Drink 

Ingredients: Sugar, fat-reduced cocoa powder (18%), glucose, chocolate (7%) (sugar, cocoa mass, fat-reduced cocoa powder, flavouring vanillin), mineral dicalcium phosphate, emulsifier (sunflower lecithin), flavouring vanillin, salt.

Date: July 2021   Score: 4 

***

Twinings