The best hot chocolates, tried and tested 2026

A mug, glass, or even bowl – if you want to be very continental – of hot chocolate has got to be the ultimate comfort drink. The market is overflowing with choices of hot chocolate, and there's something out there for all budgets, diets and desires.

When choosing the right hot chocolate for you, it depends on how strong a flavour and how sweet you like it. Most dark chocolate will show the percentage of cocoa solids and the higher the number, the stronger and somewhat darker the taste.

With lesser numbers, the taste is softer, but beware that sugar may be used to compensate for loss of flavour. Milk chocolate goes from dark to lighter too, but will always contain milk, so isn't suitable for a vegan diet or those with a dairy intolerance.

Authentic hot chocolate, therefore, is made with chocolate, whatever strength or colour you like. It can be a bar that you grate at home; ready-grated; sold in chunks, flakes, drops or discs; and even sold on a stick to stir through hot milk.

Read on to discover our top-rated hot chocolates for making instant warming drinks. If you'd prefer to make your own from scratch, see our classic hot chocolate recipe, slow cooker hot chocolate or a hot chocolate stirrer.

Best hot chocolate to buy at a glance

• Best luxury milk hot chocolate: Hotel Chocolat Milky 50% hot chocolate drink, £14.95
• Best sustainable chocolate flakes: Islands Chocolate milk chocolate flakes, £6.95
• Best for variety: Knoops hot chocolate gift box, £20
• Best for gifting: Hundred House Single Origin Hot Chocolate, £10.50
• Best sweetened hot chocolate: Spice Kitchen hot chocolate, £6
• Best small-batch drinking chocolate: Bullion single-origin drinking chocolate, £14.95
• Best hot chocolate bombs: Cocoba hot chocolate bombes, £21.90
• Best plain drinking chocolate: Cosy Chocolate original plain drinking chocolate, £4
• Best for coffee fans: Modern Standard 52% hot chocolate, from £6

Best hot chocolates to buy in 2026

Hotel Chocolat Milky 50% hot chocolate drink

Available from Hotel Chocolat (£14.95), Very (£29.90 for two packs)

Best luxury milk hot chocolate

You can find a Hotel Chocolat on most high streets and shopping centres in the UK. From a small start in 2004, it now has 106 stores and cafés and a strong online presence. It has a wide choice of all things chocolate, including the drinking variety.

We test the highly popular Milky 50%, which is more mellow than the 70% and better suited to those who prefer a less sweet drink. This set comes with 10 single-serve sachets of hot chocolate flakes – perfect if you already have a Hotel Chocolat Velvetiser – and it's also vegan-friendly and gluten-free.

In our test, the flakes melted in an instant and the quality of the chocolate shines through. There are also several other interesting flavours to choose from, including a rather tempting salted caramel.

Available from:

• Hotel Chocolat (£14.95)
• Very (£29.90 for two packs)

Islands Chocolate milk hot chocolate flakes

Available from Islands Chocolate (£7.55), Ocado (£6.95), Tesco (£6.95)

Best sustainable chocolate flakes

Islands Chocolate started life in St Vincent in the Caribbean, when the Marriott family noticed that some of the world's finest cocoa was going largely unnoticed. What began as a cocoa-growing operation has now expanded into an impressive seed-to-bar brand with a strong ethical backbone: the cocoa is grown and sourced directly, with traceability from farm to cup.

The hot chocolate comes in a few forms, but the milk chocolate flakes are the standout: rich, creamy and properly balanced, with none of that cloying sweetness you get from the supermarket stuff. They melt cleanly in a milk frother with no clumps, resulting in a drink that's moreish without being too heavy. We also tested the classic powder, which is slightly sweeter but still has a bitter edge to keep things balanced. It also comes with instructions for a cold version, which means you can enjoy it year-round.

The tins are on the smaller side, but the quality justifies it. If you're buying as a gift, this is an easy win.

Available from:

• Islands Chocolate (£7.55)
• Ocado (£6.95)
• Tesco (£6.95)

Knoops hot chocolate selection box

Available from Knoops (£20)

Best for variety

Knoops is a brand built around one idea: hot chocolate doesn't have to mean just one thing. This selection box makes that case well, offering 10 different percentages – from a 28 per cent white all the way up to 100 per cent extra-dark – each in a single-serve sachet of chocolate flakes.

All 10 melt cleanly in a milk frother. Below 70 per cent, the drinks are rich and creamy, and genuinely lovely. Push into the 80-100 per cent territory, and the drinks are seriously bitter – not for everyone, but that's kind of the point. This is a box for people who want to find their percentage, not those who already know they like milky hot chocolate (me!).

Six of the 10 percentages are award-winning, and the range includes options for vegans, too. As a gift for someone curious about chocolate, it's hard to beat.

Available from:

• Knoops (£20)

Hundred House Single Origin Hot Chocolate (250g)

Available from Hundred House Coffee (£10.50), Selfridges (£12.99)

We love this, it's just the thing if you want to make hot chocolate more of a luxury occasion. Hundred House Coffee are best known (unsurprisingly) for their coffee, but they make a good hot choc too.

Provenance is at the heart of Hundred House, and this sustainably produced hot chocolate is made with rare single-origin cacao from Ecuador, a variety that makes up only 2% of cacao produced worldwide. Mix with water and milk for a rich and fruity cup – the suggested recipe is 30g of chocolate whisked with water to form a thin paste, then mixed with 180ml warm milk until smooth.

This gets bonus points for the fun tin too, which would make a great winter birthday gift. If you want to really commit, you can order the giant 1kg pouch to see you all through winter.

Available from:

• Hundred House Coffee (£10.50)
• Selfridges (£12.99)

Spice Kitchen hot chocolate (100g)

Available from Spice Kitchen (£6)

Best sweetened hot chocolate

This self-proclaimed 'yummiest' hot chocolate is a powder made of fat-reduced 25% cocoa powder and sugar. Spice Kitchen suggests mixing the powder with water to create a paste before adding hot milk.

The fine powder blends quickly with the heated milk and melts quickly. The result is a more cocoa-like drink, perfect if you like a lighter yet still chocolatey flavour. There is high praise for the taste, though a few testers find it a little too sweet.

We also like the ethics of the mother-and-son team behind Spice Kitchen, who produce award-winning spices, spice blends and gin. Through sales of their products, they help children in India to receive nutritious midday meals through the Akshaya Patra Foundation. Dairy- and gluten-free, high in sugar.

Available from:

• Spice Kitchen (£6)

Bullion single-origin drinking chocolate (250g)

Available from Bullion Chocolate (£14.95)

Best small-batch drinking chocolate

Award-winning Bullion chocolate is a relative newcomer to the chocolate business, founded in 2016 by Max Scotford in Sheffield. He follows the bean-to-bar approach for chocolate-making and is one of only a handful to use craft, small-batch techniques to bring the best out of the cacao.

On opening the packet of chocolate, we are welcomed with a waft of heavy chocolate. A peep inside shows some serious chunks nestled into the powder.

We test a 50% single origin chocolate from Santo Domingo, Ecuador – the only hot chocolate Max currently makes. He suggests mixing 30g chocolate with hot milk (an unspecified quantity – we use 200ml), stirring until the chocolate melts.

We follow these instructions and find that the chocolate melts very quickly, and are very impressed by the rich, thick texture, depth of flavour and creaminess.

For 50% chocolate, it tastes much deeper and darker with a lovely sweetness. Like a good wine, Max offers tasting notes – expect roasted nuts, butterscotch and vanilla. Not suitable for vegans, contains sugar.

Available from:

• Bullion (£12.50)

Cocoba hot chocolate bombes

Available from Not On The High Street (£21.90, set of 2)

Best hot chocolate bombs

Celebrate a special occasion with these fun hot chocolate bombs from Cocoba. Simply drop the bomb into a mug of steaming hot milk and watch the magic happen as the chocolate melts and releases the mini marshmallows in the middle.

The creamy pure Belgian milk chocolate melts easily and makes for a rich and smooth texture. It's on the sweeter side, but subtle enough for adults to enjoy with the kids. This pack of three makes a great gift or stocking filler at Christmas.

Available from:

• Not On The High Street (£21.90, set of 2)

Cosy Chocolate original plain drinking chocolate (160g)

Available from Cosy Chocolate (£4)

Best plain drinking chocolate

Cosy Chocolate is a small homemade hot chocolate business based in the heart of the Worcestershire countryside. It makes hot chocolate in a range of flavours, with an aim ‘to create the perfect cosy moment in a mug’.

Its 62% chocolate is a handcrafted and hand-flaked drinking chocolate with a rich, dark colour. There is no given quantity of milk in its recipe, so we used 200ml and 4 tsp chocolate.

The chocolate disappears into the milk in an instant and with a few stirs, froths up. A delicious aroma conjures smiles all-round. This is a lovely, deep-flavoured drink with a velvety texture. It lives up to its name – we immediately want to hunker down and enjoy it. Suitable for vegans, may contain milk.

Available from:

• Cosy Chocolate (£4)

Modern Standard 52% hot chocolate (200g)

Available from Modern Standard (£6)

Best for coffee fans

Modern Standard is first and foremost a coffee company, however it offers one hot chocolate sourced directly from a family-run business in Manizales, Colombia. To offset any social impact, it gives 10p from every purchase to a local social impact project.

The chocolate is a light-coloured powder that has an intense, chocolatey aroma. Modern Standard uses Cacao Fino de Aroma beans (a classification of the International Cocoa Organisation), which is the gold standard of all cocoa produced across the globe.

It recommends steaming the hot chocolate, which will only work for those with a coffee machine with a steaming wand. We make a paste with the chocolate and milk, then whisk in scalded milk (around 70C). Modern Standard recommends a 9:1 milk to chocolate ratio, which is handy if you need to make a big quantity.

The texture is slightly grainy, but this doesn't affect the taste, which is wonderfully deep, strong and quite nutty, even with added sugar. This hot chocolate is delicious. Dairy-free, suitable for vegans, with added sugar.

Available from:

• Modern Standard (£6)

How we tested hot chocolate

We made each hot chocolate mix with both dairy and dairy-free milk. For every chocolate sent for testing, we used the quantities and recommended recipe instructions from the company. We scored the hot chocolate against the following criteria on our test matrix:

• Flavour
• Consistency
• Blending
• How easy it is to prepare
• How long it takes to make

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