Review - Dagoba Drinking Chocolates

Dagoba chocolate is a product I've been seeing turn up more and more in my local grocery stores. I started seeing it first in the baking chocolates, and later saw their drinking chocolates pop up in the hot cocoa aisle. Being a "Star Wars" fan my entire life, how could I not be drawn to this chocolate!?

As always, we're going to enjoy a couple of their drinking chocolates for the review, but I did also grab their 100% unsweetened chocolate. It has a couple other ingredients in minuscule amounts (soy lecithin and milk), but it is still a very nice chocolate to work with.

I picked up both the Authentic and the Xocolatl drinking chocolates. The Authentic is simply their dark hot chocolate, while the Xocolatl is flavored to represent the ancient Mexican drinking chocolates with some added cinnamon and chili.

There's a small label on all their products showing a little frog. This is the Rainforest Alliance logo, and it's there because Dagoba is all about sustainability. Taking care of the environment, the cacao workers, and their cacao farms. I'm all for this! If cacao isn't sustained, that would mean no chocolate. That's not a world I want to live in!

The ingredients on both products are nice and simple. A great, straight forward mix. It just seems so unnecessary to add in all the extra preservatives and stuff that most store bought hot chocolates have in them, especially once you taste a chocolate like this. So much more real chocolate flavor! 

Their instructions actually made me laugh a little. What a pleasant way to describe the act of heating milk and scooping this chocolate into it! "When vapors rise, the milk will be at its most receptive to accept the chocolate into its embrace". Seriously, how awesome is that! 

The mix itself has nice chunks of real chocolate in it, which is great. Having the actual bits of whole chocolate in there is a definite improvement over mixes that only have cocoa powder. The fat (cocoa butter) from the chocolate really makes a difference in the smoothness.

By the way, did you know what Dagoba means? A dagoba is a shrine for sacred relics in the Far East, usually pertaining to Buddha. Kind of makes sense that George Lucas used it for the name of the planet where the wise Jedi Master Yoda was living in "The Empire Strikes Back".

The Authentic has a rich, almost smoky flavor. Nice dark notes, but not bitter - it still manages to be sweet. And as I always recommend, you can use just a little of the mix for a nice lighter breakfast hot chocolate, and then in the evening, use a lot for a rich after-dinner dessert drink.

The Xocolatl is spicy, but not uncomfortably so. It's a very nice heat. The cinnamon is not as forward in this mix as in some other Mexican chocolates, but it's there, and it's a great addition. It'd be great to see Dagoba add a little more cinnamon to this mix and really make it pop!

Both of these chocolates are wonderful and worth picking up. Dagoba drinking chocolates are a perfect replacement for those packets of powdered milk disguised as hot cocoa you're keeping in your cupboard or office. Hopefully there's a gourmet grocery store near you that carries them, but if not, you can always grab them at Dagoba's website. They have a couple other flavors there, as well, like Chai, which sounds great!

Review - La Soledad Canela Hot Chocolate

I had a tough time deciding which Mexican hot chocolate to review first. There are a ton of them! I wanted to review a very authentic one first, but I also wanted to introduce them the way I was introduced to them. It turns out, the first one I ever had was a pretty darn authentic one, La Soledad Canela flavored hot chocolate.

 

Unlike most American packaged hot chocolates, this isn't a powder mix, it's a solid chocolate tablet. That's how most traditional Mexican hot chocolates comes, as a tablet. Another staple of Mexican hot chocolates is cinnamon. They almost all seem to have it, which certainly isn't a bad thing. And a few of them often have nutty flavors, as well.



La Soledad makes quite a few other varieties of hot chocolate, but what I have here is the canela (Spanish for cinnamon).

They're a Mexican company, located in Oaxaca (wa-HOCK-a), Mexico. Oaxaca is known for cacao, used in mole sauces and as a beverage. So, yeah, this is good, authentic stuff. 

My girlfriend discovered this hot chocolate while doing a project with some Mexican and Aztec influences. She wanted to serve Mexican hot chocolate at the presentation, and found a place in Eagle Rock, CA, called Cacao Mexicatessan that sold this. Not only do they serve amazing food there, but they sell all kinds of imported products from Mexico, mostly cacao things.

The chocolate tablets are molded with La Soledad's logo and individually foil wrapped.

As usual, when I have a big chunk of chocolate to melt into some milk or water, I chop it up pretty thoroughly. Most Mexican chocolate tablets have a coarse, grainy texture. You may find that it doesn't melt completely, leaving grains at the bottom of the cup. That could be cinnamon, or perhaps it's the stone ground cacao. Whatever it is, it's fine to eat it if you want to. If it's the cacao, it's actually good for you!

Let's talk about another thing the Mexicans do with their hot chocolate - frothing!

Frothing is whipping the chocolate until a foam covers the surface. Before the Spanish reached Mexico in the 16th century, hot chocolate drinks were frothed by pouring them from one pitcher to another over and over. The Spaniards then invented the wooden tool pictured here, the molinillo. You hold the top of it between your palms and spin it back and forth, and it whips the liquid up into a perfect, yummy froth.

I have another frother, an electric one with its own pitcher, and I'll highlight that in a future blog post. For now, I wanted to keep it traditional and do it the old fashioned way.

La Soledad Canela hot chocolate is nice and light, a perfect breakfast or afternoon hot chocolate. In Mexico, hot chocolate is traditionally served with pan dulce, which are sweet breads that come in many varieties. I even found a great handmade and painted Mexican mug!
 
I couldn't find La Soledad on Amazon, so as far as I know, the only way to get it is to swing by Cacao Mexicatessan and pick some up, or to order it from their website, which requires that you email them about the products you want.

Do you know of any Mexican hot chocolates? Which is your favorite? I have an entire cupboard full, and I'll get to reviewing them all eventually, but please comment below and let me know your favorites. Or even better, a recipe!

La Soledad's website
http://www.chocolatedeoaxaca.com.mx