Hot Chocolate Reviews

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Hot Chocolate Reviews Reviewed
Review Ratings	Citation	CS Credibility Rating	Hot Chocolate Ratings Comments on Reviews
1. Cook’s Illustrated	Tasting Lab: Hot Cocoa Mix Editors of Cook's Illustrated Not Dated		In this web exclusive, Cook's Illustrated editors try out eight leading brands of packaged hot chocolate. Four brands make it into the "recommended" category: Land O' Lakes Supreme Chocolate Hot Cocoa, for its "buttery milk chocolate flavor;" Lake Champlain All-Natural Traditional Hot Chocolate, which is described as "rich and sweet;" Hershey's Goodnight Kisses Hot Cocoa and Swiss Miss Milk Chocolate Hot Cocoa. Ghirardelli Double Chocolate is panned for excessive sweetness, while Nestlé Rich Chocolate Hot Cocoa is criticized for its "fake, sugary taste," which comes from the addition of sucralose.
2. Consumer Reports >> Details/Subscribe	Which Cocoa's a Go? Editors of Consumer Reports Dec. 2007		Consumer Reports runs ten packaged hot cocoa mixes past a panel of testers. They found that the best taste great, but the worst can taste thin, weak and oily. A chart compares cost, calories, amount of fat and amount of sugar. Most just need hot water, but one of the Hershey's cocoas calls for the addition of sugar, salt, hot water, milk and vanilla.

Hot Chocolate Reviews above this line are significantly better than reviews below.

Review Ratings	Citation	CS Credibility Rating	Hot Chocolate Ratings Comments on Reviews

3. Good Housekeeping.com >> Details/Subscribe	Taste Test: Hot Cocoa Debby Goldsmith Feb. 2008		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."
4. Real Simple	Standout Hot Chocolate Editors of Real Simple Feb. 2006		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.
5. SFGate.com	Taster's Choice: Top-rated non-organic cocoa mixes produce stirring results Carol Ness Feb. 13, 2008		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.
6. SFGate.com	Taster's Choice: Trader Joe's organic hot chocolate takes the chill off Carol Ness Jan. 9, 2008		In the only taste test of organic hot chocolate mixes, editors taste-test eight varieties. The top finisher is Trader Joe's Conacado Organic Fair Trade Cocoa, followed by Equal Exchange Hot Cocoa. All the other organic cocoas tasted receive less favorable scores.

Hot Chocolate Reviews above this line are significantly better than reviews below.

Review Ratings	Citation	CS Credibility Rating	Hot Chocolate Ratings Comments on Reviews

7. SeriousEats.com	The Serious Eats Hot Chocolate Taste Test Ed Levine Dec. 19, 2007		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."
8. About.com	Top 10 Drinking Chocolates Brett Moore Not Dated		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.)
9. StarChefs.com	Invasion of the Drinking Chocolates Stephanie Zonis Jan. 2004		StarChefs is an award-winning online magazine for food aficionados. Chocolate columnist Stephanie Zonis and some of her friends taste-test 13 gourmet hot chocolate mixes, giving "recommended" ratings to their favorites. The top mixes here are Enric Rovira Chocolate a la Taza, Schokinag European Drinking Chocolate and the "deeply chocolate" Bonnat.
10. Cookie Magazine	Haute Chocolate Sajan Kuriakos Nov. 2006		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.
11. Food & Wine Magazine >> Details/Subscribe	Taste Test: Hot Chocolate Jen Murphy Mar. 2003		In this short review, Food & Wine editors try out an unspecified number of hot chocolates and come up with four top picks: Bernard Callebaut, Scharffen Berger Natural Cocoa Powder, Ghirardelli Double Chocolate and Schokinag European Drinking Chocolate. This review would rate more highly if editors revealed more of their testing criteria and disclosed which mixes didn't make the cut.
12. Backpacker Magazine >> Details/Subscribe	Taste Test: Hot Chocolate Buck Tilton Feb. 2006		Buck Tilton and the Backpacker Magazine staff try out 16 hot chocolate brands, choosing four as the best: Hershey's (Chocolate Raspberry and Goodnight Kisses), Land O' Lakes, Stephen's Gourmet and Swiss Miss (Rich Chocolate and Caramel Cream). Hot chocolates that didn't make the cut are not listed, which damages this review's credibility.
13. Boston.com	Hot Cocoa Mixes Debra Samuels Not Dated		Boston.com is the website of The Boston Globe newspaper. Debra Samuels and the Boston.com staff taste five packaged hot cocoa mixes. There's no clear consensus about the winner, but Hershey's Goodnight Kisses receives top picks from three of the eight judges. Tasting notes for each mix are included.
14. Tastingmenu.com	Hot Chocolate Tasting Editors of Tastingmenu.com Jan. 15, 2005		In this informal but detailed blind taste test, a group of Seattle-area food aficionados sample ten hot chocolates, rating them for six characteristics including aroma, texture and quality of flavor. The winner is McNess Hot Cocoa, followed closely by Scharffen Berger Natural Cocoa Powder. Washington Huskies Dawg Gone Good Gourmet Cocoa makes the testers regret they didn't have a spit bucket.
15. CandyAddict.com	Hot Cocoa Roundup: Seven Varieties Reviewed "Amber" Jan. 11, 2008		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.

Hot Chocolate Reviews above this line are significantly better than reviews below.

Review Ratings	Citation	CS Credibility Rating	Hot Chocolate Ratings Comments on Reviews

16. The Desert Sun	Snuggle up with a cocoa…but which one? Editors of The Desert Sun Dec. 12, 2007		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).