BRIEFLY REVIEWED: A $4 Cup of Hot Cocoa Mix
With botanical illustrations, phonetic transcription teaching you how to pronounce the brand name, and a high price point, Cup of Coa is positioning itself to be the anti-Swiss Miss.
The heart of THE COOKBOOK TEST is our weekly deep-dive review and recipe test of a new or vintage cookbook. But occasionally I’ll buy or receive a product that catches my eye and the result is a column that goes a little something like this one.
About a month ago, I was pitched on samples of Cup of Coa, which describes itself as "America’s premier luxury hot cocoa brand" known for "offering indulgent custom blends using natural ingredients that go beyond traditional cocoa."
Like roughly 98% of people, I enjoy the taste of chocolate. Beyond that, I'll rarely turn down a chance to evaluate something that claims to be a luxury product - it's always interesting to see how much of the luxury status derives from packaging and hype as opposed to craftsmanship and quality ingredients. About a month later my samples arrived: six 2 oz. single-serving sleeves of powder, each meant to be transformed with hot water into an 8 oz. beverage.
The packaging is certainly on point for the ambition: sleek, minimalist, white sleeves with botanical illustrations and a helpful phonetic transcription to teach you how to say the brand name (kō) as well as how to pronounce "cup" (kup) and "of" (uv).
Now we get to the nitty gritty. The text on the cover of each sleeve describes the product as a custom blend of only the finest cocoas for an exclusive flavor profile that indulges your senses. That's all well and good, but when we flip over to the ingredients, we get (in order):
Sugar, Powdered Coconut Oil Creamer, mono- and diglycerides, and dipotassium phosphate.
Past that, we get a "2% or less" disclaimer and dive into sodium silicoaluminate, soy lecithin, whey powder, nonfat dry milk and, way near the back, cocoa powder.
Well then. This is looking a lot less like a premium blend of luscious exclusive luxury cocoas, and more like any given Indonesian 3-in-1 instant coffee packet.
BUT! Here's the thing. I quite like Indonesian 3-in-1 instant coffee packets. When I'm camping, they're absolutely the move for easy, first-thing-in-the-morning, remote campsite drinkable coffee - no need to fuss with a brewing apparatus, no need to add sugar or cream, just a quick hot water + powder = satisfying breakfast caffeine experience. I'll even drink them at home from time to time when I'm in a rush or fresh out of legit coffee. They get the job done.
In that spirit of cheerful open-mindedness, I poured hot water into two mugs, one with Sinfully Classic Gourmet Milk Chocolate powder, the other with Sinfully Mint Gourmet Milk Chocolate Creme de Menthe Hot Cocoa powder.
Readers: Both were quite good. I mean: creamy, rich, sweet without being overpowering, full-flavored and thick without being cloying or pudding-like. The stab of mint in the creme de menthe variety was a little intense initially, but it calmed down as I kept sipping, and I ultimately found the level of mintiness to be ideal.
The price is steep for powdered hot cocoa, but isn't bad for a premium non-alcoholic beverage - Cup of Coa retails online for $32 for a 3 pound bag, enough to make about 24-30 cups. If you buy the individual 2 oz. single sleeves, they're $4 a pop, which is steep no matter how you cut it.
The odds of me going back and buying 3 pound bags of this stuff come winter are reasonably good - it's a markedly better hot chocolate even than the quite good Mike and Jen's that I've been buying and mixing with milk as our go-to winter hot cocoa. I wouldn't try to sell this to a trained barista as a single origin gourmet revelation, but as a high-end, day-to-day, legitimately compelling hot chocolate it's pretty damn good.