I just received the article in the link below but remembered your post and wanted to share it -- maybe it'll give you some ideas. http://www.seriouseats.com/2015/02/the-best-fancy-hot-chocolate-drinking-chocolate.html
Are you talking a mix for hot choc or a good brand of cocoa? If former, nothing beats homemade, with either/ both cocoa and choc w/high % cocoa solids. See David lebowitz or pierre herme ecipes.
At home, I prefer to make hot cocoa. I think cocoa makes for a very rich chocolate taste, and is not as heavy as chocolate. I like to use different cocoas, but my two favorite are Scharffen Berger Natural (not Dutched) cocoa, or Valrhona Dutched Cocoa. The former is the taste I grew up with, and the latter is darker, and perhaps richer & stronger in chocolate flavor.
Always have your milk hot, but not boiling, when you start whisking in the cocoa. The flavor of cocoa blooms in warm liquid. For fun I might add some vanilla sugar or honey or cinnamon. And I always whisk in the tiniest dash of sea salt - I think this balances the sweet with the bitter inherent in cocoa/chocolate.
When buying chocolate and cocoa for making hot beverages, make sure the store you are buying it from goes through it quickly - stale cocoa and hot chocolate mixes will have an off flavor.
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Always have your milk hot, but not boiling, when you start whisking in the cocoa. The flavor of cocoa blooms in warm liquid. For fun I might add some vanilla sugar or honey or cinnamon. And I always whisk in the tiniest dash of sea salt - I think this balances the sweet with the bitter inherent in cocoa/chocolate.
When buying chocolate and cocoa for making hot beverages, make sure the store you are buying it from goes through it quickly - stale cocoa and hot chocolate mixes will have an off flavor.