Review - Hans Sloane Drinking Chocolate

I've never been a tea or coffee drinker, but sometimes I still want to sit down and relax with a nice hot drink. On these occasions I always turn to a hot chocolate, and so I was delighted when I was asked if I'd like to try a sample of Hans Sloane Drinking Chocolate. Sir Hans Sloane launched his first drinking chocolate in London over 325 years ago, and today the range includes three main variants - Smooth Milk Drinking Chocolate, Rich Dark Drinking Chocolate and Natural Honey Drinking Chocolate.

Hans Sloane Drinking Chocolate doesn't look anything like the powder that I'm used to adding to water. Instead it's a box of pure chocolate beads, which are melted together with hot milk or water to produce a hot chocolate drink which really is chocolate actually made for drinking.

I made my first mug using milk. The recommended quantity is three heaped tablespoons of the chocolate beads melted into 200ml of water or milk. I couldn't resist trying one of the beads on its own and it was delicious, you could easily just eat them by themself! The hot chocolate drink itself was equally yummy, it really was just like drinking actual chocolate. The texture was beautifully smooth, and the only slight remnants left in the bottom of the mug were pure chocolate, a pleasure to finish with!

My Dad happened to be visiting, so he tried a  mug of the Rich Dark Drinking Chocolate. He's a fan of dark chocolate anyway, and he pronounced it delicious!

The recommended retail price for the packet is £4.99, and each packet will make approximately six servings. It's not cheap, although having said that that, my usual hot chocolate brand doesn't work out particularly cheap either, and the quality is nowhere near as good as this. And of course it's nothing compared to what you would pay for a hot chocolate when you're out and about. But the fact that it's 351 calories per serving (when mixed with semi-skimmed milk) also means that it's a drink for indulging rather than every day drinking! A packet would make a lovely, luxurious gift for someone like me that doesn't drink tea or coffee.

I would imagine that the chocolate beads are pretty versatile too. As well as simply snacking on them, you could easily use them in baking - perhaps in cookies, or to flavour icing. You could even just sprinkle them across the top of a chocolate cake, or melt to make fridge cake or rice crispy cakes.

I'm certainly not going to have any problems getting through my boxes!

I received two boxes of Hans Sloane Drinking Chocolate for the purpose of this review.