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by Editors of Cook's Illustrated
by Editors of Consumer Reports
by Debby Goldsmith
Good Housekeeping's staff tastes 19 nationally available supermarket brands of hot chocolate, but only lists the three winners: Swiss Miss Milk Chocolate (which is prepared with water) and Godiva Milk… Chocolate Hot Cocoa (which is prepared with milk). Lake Champlain Old World Drinking Chocolate takes the top spot in the dark chocolate category. The magazine says nothing about mixes that didn't make the cut, although they report that many taste "thin and watery."
by Editors of Real Simple
Real Simple taste-tests 40 brands of hot chocolate and comes up with six winners. Land O' Lakes Cocoa Classics Supreme and Swiss Miss Chocolate Sensation are named best hot chocolates under $5, while Godiva… Dark Chocolate Truffle and Schokinag Extreme Dark win the $10 to $15 category and Jacques Torres Wicked and MarieBelle Aztec take the over $15 slot. No mention is made of the brands that weren't top-rated.
by Carol Ness
A month after rating organic hot cocoa mixes, SFGate.com (the website of the San Francisco Chronicle) taste-tests 14 supermarket brands. All of the hot cocoas are rated, and points are awarded for taste,… texture, appearance and whether the tester would buy the product. All products are tasted blind. The top finishers are The Spice Hunter Winter Sippers Cioccolata and E. Guittard Grand Cacao, followed by Trader Joe's Sipping Chocolate. Surprisingly, Scharffen Berger -- which is top-rated by other sites -- finishes next to last, above the house brand of Safeway.
by Carol Ness
by Ed Levine
Serious Eats is a website focused on sharing food enthusiasm through online community. In this review, the Serious Eats staff tries out five brands of hot cocoa and hot chocolate, each costing less than 75… cents per serving. The top finisher is Dagoba Organic, deemed "far and away the richest, most chocolatey, most satisfying cup we found." Swiss Miss Rich Chocolate has no "discernable chocolate flavor," but panelists still like it for its texture and "sweet, smooth taste."
by Brett Moore
Brett Moore, About.com's Guide to Gourmet Food, lists his ten favorite hot chocolates. L.A. Burdick Dark takes the top spot for its "luscious and complex" flavor, followed by Vosges La Parisienne Couture… Cocoa, MarieBelle Aztec Original Hot Chocolate and Schokinag Extreme Dark European Drinking Chocolate, even though it's "a bit thinner than other brands." (Note that ConsumerSearch and About.com are owned by the same parent company, but are not affiliated editorially.)
by Stephanie Zonis
by Sajan Kuriakos
Cookie is Condé Nast's family magazine. Sajan Kuriakos and Cookie's testers make three picks in each of three categories: gourmet, after school and every day. Jacques Torres Classic is the top gourmet pick,… described as "not too sweet and not too bitter." The "deliciously milky" Starbucks Chocolate Cocoa Mix is tops for the after-school crowd, while Swiss Miss Chocolate Sensation and the low-caffeine Hershey's Goodnight Kisses finish neck-and-neck in the everyday category.
by Jen Murphy
by Buck Tilton
by Debra Samuels
by Editors of Tastingmenu.com
by "Amber"
CandyAddict is a blog about candy founded by Brian Pipa. Author "Amber" is the only participant in this impromptu taste test of seven hot cocoa mixes, but she writes up each brand in detail and does a good… job describing each one's good and bad points. Each brand is rated on a scale of one to five stars. The top finishers are Swiss Miss French Vanilla, which she calls "perfect," and Godiva Hot Cocoa, which is "like drinking melted chocolate." Hershey's Special Dark and Land O' Lakes Mint are both panned.
by Editors of The Desert Sun
Ten tasters for this Palm Springs, California newspaper try out three mainstream hot chocolate mixes: Swiss Miss Diet with Calcium, Nestle Double Chocolate Meltdown and Starbucks. None of the three receive… outstanding scores, but "the smooth but not memorable" Starbucks does best. This article is very short, with only a one-sentence verdict for each mix. However, this was the only source we found that tries a diet variety (testers say Swiss Miss Diet was like "dirty water," however).
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Schokinag Extreme Dark Chocolate - European Drinking Chocolate
 from Amazon.com
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Hershey's Hot Cocoa, Goodnight Kisses, 4-Count Boxes (Pack of 12)
from Amazon.com New: $23.70 In Stock.
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