How about some Organic Hot Chocolate?

Next week on January 31st, it will be National Hot Chocolate Day, so in honor of that, I'm looking at Equal Exchange's Dark Hot Chocolate mix. Hot cocoa and hot chocolate are often used interchangeably though we could argue that they are different so I try to go by want the brand labels the product when I decide which fun food holiday to tie a review to. We have tried several Equal Exchange products on this blog and often we are impressed by the texture and flavor; we are always impressed by their business ethics which include organic farming and fair trade. This is a powder mix that includes all organic ingredients of evaporated sugar cane juice, cocoa powder processed with alkali, and dark chocolate making it a double chocolate drink mix as well. I was sent can free in exchange for my testing it out and sharing my honest opinions about it with you all on this blog, no other form of compensation was received.

I love that the canister has this inner foil label that keeps it fresh as well as the plastic lid. I suppose if you were really careful you could try to keep the foil, too, but I just pulled it off, rinsed it off, and recycled it.

The directions call for using hot milk so I heated up 6 ounces of skim milk. You could use whole or whatever percentage you want or even a non-dairy beverage but it will affect the final flavor and possibly the texture. With the skim this allows me to test the powder more directly without added creaminess from the milk fats. As you can see, it foamed up pretty well when I whipped the 3 tablespoons of mix into the heated skim milk. The resulting hot chocolate was very dark in flavor so this is not for someone who doesn't love dark chocolate. I love darker chocolate so this was great for me but I don't think that even whole milk would tone this bitter level down for most milk chocolate lovers. Equal Exchange has other cocoa mixes so try those out if you dislike darker flavors. My one complaint is that it is difficult to keep the powder fully mixed with the milk so either drink it up quickly or keep a spoon on hand to stir it.

If you can find this in your local store, get some for next weekend's celebration. If you can't find it, trying ordering it and stocking up on it or giving it as gifts for others, perhaps for Valentine's Day or just to say "stay warm". If you love dark chocolate, Equal Exchange Dark Hot Chocolate mix is a winner and it gets Sacrament status from us for the quality, taste, and ease of making it.