:D

Two years ago I boarded a Qantas plane bound for Los Angeles. Half way through the flight the flight attendants were handing out Cadbury Hot Chocolate with marshmallows in it.

Taking a sip I thought to myself, "this isn't bad for an airline beverage".

In the past when i've had hot chocolate it has always been weak in flavour and high in raw sugar which has always put me off.

Roughly a year later I was on another Qantas flight, this time to New York and I knew the hot chocolate was going to be just as good.

I thought to myself, how good can hot chocolate actually get? What other types are there? So I made it a bit of an adventure during the time I was in New York and Paris to try as many as I could and build up some idea.

It varied from machine made to specially prepared varieties, from using water (european) or milk (american) and observing whether an establishment treated it as important as coffee or casting it off to the side.

Even though I only use milk these days, water in hot chocolate isn't bad at all, if the chocolate is good enough it really doesn't matter.

The best I had in person was to be found in the Marie Belle shop and a museum restaurant, both in New York. There were occasions where they served you a little glass of water to the side if it was too rich or in some situations in Paris they served you a very thick chocolate like sauce and you added the water allowing you to choose your own consistency, it was awesome.

I ended up bringing back a haul of different types from the trip and found that the best hot chocolate is when you use actual flakes or chunks of chocolate, rather than using a type of cocoa powder with visible sugar grains.

The type of chocolate is important too. I prefer the dark (~70%), which isn't bitter, it just has that more developed flavour that regular milk chocolate (~40%) just doesn't have.

A hot chocolate that is rich, that tastes like molten dark chocolate, not too thick but not too watery, is the best, it needs to be just right. Each brand varies a lot, like having a cocoa aftertaste or a powdery texture, none I have tried are the same.

Some of the brands I brought home were absolute rubbish though, I really just bought them on a whim as I was on a chocolate craze and not understanding that the powder variety just doesn't compare.

The photo at the top shows my favourites so far. Individually tinned ones are from Marie Belle in New York - aztec, mocha, spicy and dark varieties. The blue packet is dark from a chocolate company in Belgium, purchased in Paris.

The rounded Lindt tin is widely available in supermarkets here in Australia and has been satisfying my need for a good quality drink. The milk chocolate variety is weak as, dark is the best. It works out to be $2.50 a cup.

After my initial supply dried up and being on the verge of throwing out the really bad ones I tried ordering some from Marie Belle overseas, however when you get a shipping quote of over $100 it seems ludicrous.

Given Christmas was coming up I decided to have a another look and was searching around. Too many places just don't decide to ship internationally which is a real shame. The idea of a package taking 2 weeks in transit and going through a range of temperatures doesn't help. I might just have to go travelling more.

I managed to find one though, L.A. Burdick Chocolates based in the US, it had good shipping rates. The box arrived 2 days before Christmas and I gave it a try today. It's the good stuff, but the jury is still out if its better than the others, multiple tastings will be required.

Just to see I also got their milk chocolate and white chocolate varieties, which I really didn't know what to expect from, but given I like white chocolate (which some people absolutely detest), I thought it would be interesting.

Unfortunately they stuffed up the order and I didn't get the white, maybe it's so bad they spared me the experience.

On preparing it, I like mine with 1 cup of milk with around 6-8 tablespoons or 70g of chocolate in a saucepan over low heat, stirring it constantly and removing it as soon as it starts simmering bubbles and pouring it into a mug.

The quest to find the best hot chocolate, it's like trying to find the perfect coffee, fun.