Consumer Reports rates top hot chocolates

Posted Wednesday, November 28, 2007

 E-mail this page    Printer-friendly page

December issue reveals consumers don’t need to spend a lot to get a great cup of hot chocolate

Yonkers, NY — With the holiday season and colder weather rapidly approaching, Consumer Reports tested 10 popular hot chocolates. Topping the list and rated Excellent were Ghirardelli Double Chocolate and Cacao Reserve Mayan Blend by Hershey’s, prepared with water at 53 cents per serving and 140 calories.

Consumer Reports also identified two CR Best Buys that rated Very Good: Swiss Miss Dark Chocolate Sensation and Hershey’s Cocoa. Calories in the tested hot chocolates ranged from 80 to 262 per serving and cost from 22 cents to 64 cents per serving. Both calories and cost were affected by whether the manufacturer recommended using milk or water to prepare the cocoas.

CR’s trained testers prepared the 10 cocoas according to manufacturer’s recommendations and found that the best hot chocolate tastes like its name. But choose wrong from the ones CR tested, and cocoa connoisseurs could be sipping a thin reddish concoction that tastes wimpy and feels oily in the mouth.

“The best tasting products are pricey, but for about half the price, consumers can get Swiss Miss Dark Chocolate Sensation or Hershey’s Cocoa, which tasted very good,” said Leslie Ware, editor at large, Consumer Reports. “If you choose wrong, you could end up feeling the need to add whipped cream or marshmallows to make it taste better.”

When milk is used to make the Ghirardelli Reserve, it adds calories and fat. When CR used milk instead of water to make the Cacao Reserve, the chocolate flavor became more milk-chocolaty. In the lower-rated products, milk not only added flavor, but covered some defects.

The full results of the cocoa ratings are available in the December 2007 issue of Consumer Reports, available wherever magazines are sold. Portions of the report will be available on www.ConsumerReports.org.

Consumer Reports has no commercial relationship with any advertiser or sponsor appearing on this newspaper's web site.