Greetings!
Recently I was assigned to work in an office where the closest beverage was either water or coffee. Now, I have nothing against water. I drink it often. But it is rather cold in this office, especially since we are in mid-November, and cool to tepid tap water is just not what I am looking for in a beverage. The only option for a warmer liquid is coffee, which I refuse to drink.
I could go on and on about how much I despise coffee and even preemptively shoot down urgings for me to try different variese because I have tried numerous ones. Since we are just getting to know each other here, let me be very clear on one point: When I say I do not like something it is because I have had a fair interaction with it and have made an informed opinion. I try to be as fair as possible in life and rarely dismiss something on first go around.
But this is not a blog about coffee and how terrible it is. This is a blog about hot chocolate. As you have probably guessed by now, I did find a way to enjoy some hot chocolate while working in this office. To put a fine point on it, the coffee machine is a Keurig and I purchased a sample pack of single serving hot cocoas from Amazon.
The sampler contained 40 individual servings spread out over 18 varieties of hot chocolate. Several of them are from the same brand, but within these brands were different flavors. I have not tried them all yet. I am working on that. And that is where we find our discussion today. Here you will find my first round of interpretations of different flavors of hot chocolate. I have sampled 9 of the 18 varieties so far. For my readers’ sakes I will try to keep my posts on these limited to 1 or 2 flavors at a time.
First up is the brand of Felix & Norton and their Chocolat au Lait flavor:
For starters, a quick Google search tells me Felix & Norton is a cookie company based in Montreal. This explains two things immediately. It explains why there is a cookie prominently displayed on the packaging and it explains why both French and English are used to denote the flavor in this serving is milk chocolate.
The taste of this brand and flavor is not bad. There was no strong aroma and the chocolate flavor was fairly smooth. As I have stated before, I try very hard to be fair in life, especially when I am critiquing something. In that spirit of fairness I must admit I set the Keurig to a 12oz setting. I did this for two reasons. First, I had a 12oz cup. Second, there was no marking on the package of the cocoa to indicate the suggested sizing. I bring this up because the cocoa did taste watered down and that was more likely user error than the fault of the brand. Lastly, I thought I detected a hint of coffee flavor. It was not overpowering and I chalked it up to using a coffee machine to make the cocoa.
Overall, I would say this is an average cocoa. Nothing negative about the taste or texture, but nothing amazing either. Regardless of knowing whether or not Felix & Norton is a cookie company, a cursory glance at the packaging would suggest a cookie flavor of some sort in the cocoa. I honestly did not taste it. Again, to be as fair as possible, the words on the package do not say it is cookie flavored, simply milk chocolate. And I will re-review this cocoa in an 8oz serving in the future to see if my opinions change.
You can order the sample pack I am reviewing here: Amazon
Drink warmly,
The Cocoa Nut
The Cocoa Nut 