Geels & Co Cacao

 

Very old bag of chocolate brought back from Amsterdam last century! Bought in the famous Geels & Co coffee shop. Been hidden away at the back of the cupboard. My gosh, we've moved house twice since we bought this!  I made it with milk at boiling point in the microwave, stirring and reheating, and then adding sugar to taste. Great stuff. Proper chocolate taste. Just the right sweetness (of course - by adding in your own sugar you can adjust the amount to your own taste). This was very satisfying. Good body. Good texture. Great taste. Worth the minimal extra effort. 

Date: Jan 2021   Score: 8  

Twinings Options After Dinner Mint

 

This is an instant hot chocolate to wish you add hot milk. It already contains dried milk as with other instant hot chocolates, but it suggests only two spoonfuls of powder as opposed to the four which the regular instants ask for.  We've had this in the cupboard for a while now, and I'm not sure it's sold anymore - I think it may have a new name - Belgian Choc Mint. 

Using milk gives the drink a fuller and more silky mouthfeel. I sometimes use milk instead of water on other instant choc drinks, and it does work. I tried adding some creme fraiche the other day to a Lidl hot chocolate, and while it did add creamy body, it also brought in a sour note which didn't quite work. I think cream would work, but not creme fraiche. 

This is an attractive and appealing hot choc - a little sweet for my taste, and not quite enough chocolate, but it is pleasant and drinkable with an attractive mint flavour to freshen it up. 

Date: Jan 2021   Score: 6

***

Twinings

Tesco Finest Indulgent Drinking Chocolate Santo Domingo Single Origin

 

Not an instant hot chocolate. This one you add hot milk to it rather than hot water, but other than that it's the same thing. You don't need to cook it, just pour on the hot milk and stir. 

Info and instructions

There's not a lot of difference between this and regular instant hot chocolates. That it is single estate chocolate appears to be fairly meaningless as the cocoa powder is half sugar anyway, and will then be swamped in the milk. The character of the chocolate bean is likely to get lost under all that. We like it, but it is perhaps less silky and indulgent than the instants - perhaps due to the lack of dried milk in the ingredients. 

We tried it with some creme fraiche, and while that added body and silk, it was the wrong sort of cream, because it also added a sour note which didn't sit well with us. 

Date: Jan 2021    Score: 6

This is a pleasant hot chocolate. Easy drinking with a pleasant milky chocolate taste. We like it a little more than last time.  And it's in a new recyclable/reusable tin. 

 

The chocolate is named Santo Domingo, the capital of the Dominican Republic.  The Dominican Republic is one of the top ten producers and exporters of cocoa beans, and the Ciboa Valley, from where these beans come from, is a major grower of cocoa beans.  Columbus searched for gold in the valley. 

Date: Nov 2022  Score: 7

Galaxy Ultimate Frothy Hot Chocolate

 

A Christmas themed sleeve for the Galaxy Frothy Ultimate Hot Chocolate. Very cute. Instructions are to use four heaped teaspoons and pour on either hot water or milk. We used water for this first experience. I tend to put milk in instant hot chocolate anyway, and the girls like a squirt of cream, often with sprinkles. I also sometimes put in a spoonful of real hot chocolate, just to give some added depth. But for reviews I just follow the instructions. This is modest hot chocolate. Quite pleasant and inoffensive, but rather less body and chocolate flavour than average. It seems it would be better to make with milk, and we'll give that a go next time. 

Date: Nov 2020    Score:  3 1/2 

Now called Galaxy Ultimate Frothy (Fabulously frothy hot chocolate), this is thicker and more frothy than I recall from 2020, though still a little bit lacking in chocolate. The main ingredient is whey permeate, which is a by-product of cheese making, and is a cost-effective milk powder substitute and bulking agent - it is likely the whey permeate that results in the thick body that produces the "froth".  Only 9% cocoa powder and 3% milk chocolate - the rest is sugar and other ingredients.  Price is £2.60 for 275g from Tesco (or £2.00 with a Clubcard membership). We make it with some milk and mostly hot water. It is an attractive milky drink with some chocolate flavour. 

Date: August 2021   Score: 4 

Montezuma's Dark Drinking Chocolate

 

Gift from a friend. The disks are slightly discoloured, and the Montezuma website doesn't have the drinking chocolate for sale at the moment, and though there are bags still available on Amazon there is a note saying: "These details were last updated on 9 October 2017", so the chocolate is likely not fresh. I warmed up some milk in a jug then put in the disc and stirred, as per the instructions. The instructions then say to wait and be patient - but meanwhile the milk is getting cold, so I popped my jug into the microwave to to keep it warm, then stirred a bit more and put it back, and then stirred again before serving.  

Ingredients: Cocoa Solids 73% Organic Dark Chocolate (Organic Cocoa Mass 67%, Organic Sugar 25%, Organic Cocoa Butter 8% & Organic Vanilla Extract).

When my friend made it for me, the hot chocolate was fairly bitty with spots of chocolate floating around in the milk, and the milk was not creamy. So I am glad I returned it to the microwave for more warming and stirring. I think therein lies the secret to success with these discs.  

The final result is a pleasant creamy hot chocolate with a hint of vanilla. Quite satisfying, but not indulgent and not characterful. Pleasant is what it is. Most people would find this acceptable, but few would find it wonderful. 

Date: Nov 2020    Score: 5 

Tesco Instant Hot Chocolate

 

This is a fairly standard and fairly modest instant hot chocolate. There is a modest chocolate flavour - quite milky. It's a pleasant, easy drinking hot chocolate. It won't be entirely satisfying and not entirely yummy, but it'll do the job in an average low expectations way. It is, after all, a budget instant hot chocolate, and that's what it tastes like. 

Ingredients

It's £1.60 for 400g. The suggestion is four or five teaspoons per serving, so there are approximately 14 servings. That's around 12p per serving.  The main ingredients are milk, sugar and glucose syrup - cocoa powder amounts to 13% of the contents, which is why it doesn't taste much of chocolate.  It's more of a lightly chocolate flavoured instant milk drink. Not too far from the instant frothy coffee drinks. 


Date: Oct 2020   Score: 5 

Tesco Stockwell Instant Hot Chocolate

 

Stockwell is Tesco's really cheap and basic brand line to compete with Lidl and Aldi. The quality of Stockwell branded goods tends to be very low, and that is the case here. The recommendation is five spoons (compared with two spoons for the Galaxy Light), and even with five spoons it tastes thin and watery with little chocolate flavour. There's no character here. This is about as basic as you can get.
  

Sugar is fairly high in the ingredient list (the higher the ingredient in the list, the greater the amount - so the first ingredient will have the most amount, while the last listed ingredient will have the least amount). There is more sugar than cocoa powder. The top ingredient is maltodextrin. Maltodextrin is similar to the glucose syrup  used in Galaxy Light, and some glucose syrup is used here as well, but much further down in the ingredients list. Given the better taste and cost of Galaxy Light my assumption is that maltodextrin does the same thing as glucose syrup but not as well and for much cheaper. 

The jar is 375g and costs 89p. The claim is 13 servings, so that's just under 7p per serving. Very cheap. But not good value for money. 

Date: Oct 2020    Score: 2