What Is Caotina Noir? The Swiss Dark Drinking Chocolate

What is Caotina Noir?

Caotina Noir is the dark version of Caotina, the Swiss drinking chocolate made with real chocolate rather than plain cocoa powder. It carries 45 per cent cocoa, which is what makes it noticeably darker and less sweet than the original.

If you already drink Caotina, that single number is the whole decision. Everything else about the two is the same brand, the same Swiss chocolate character and the same method in the cup.

Noir or Original: which one you want

Caotina Original is the familiar milk chocolate version: rounded, sweet, and the one most people start with. It is a comfortable everyday drink and it suits children.

Caotina Noir takes the cocoa up to 45 per cent. The sweetness steps back, the chocolate steps forward, and what you get is closer to a drinking chocolate you would be served in a Swiss cafe than to a bedtime malt drink. It has a faint bitterness at the finish, in the way good dark chocolate does.

Choose Original if you want comfort. Choose Noir if you have ever thought a hot chocolate was too sweet to finish.

Blanc, and the rest of the range

Caotina Blanc is the white version, and it is a genuinely different drink rather than a sweeter Original. There is no dark cocoa character to it at all, so what you get is the creamy, vanilla led side of white chocolate. It is made the same way, two to three heaped teaspoons in 200ml of milk, warm or cold, and it also works in baking when a white chocolate note is wanted.

So the three drinking powders line up by how much cocoa character is in them: Blanc has none of the dark side, Original sits in the middle, Noir takes it as far as the range goes. Most people who buy one eventually own two.

There is also a spread. Caotina Crème Chocolat is the same Swiss chocolate in a jar, for bread, croissants and pancakes, or stirred through porridge. Worth knowing it exists if you already like the drink.

Why it tastes different from cocoa powder

Most hot chocolate powders in a British supermarket are cocoa powder with sugar and milk powder added. Caotina is built from real chocolate, and that shows up as a rounder, fuller flavour with less of the dusty edge that plain cocoa can leave.

It also affects how it behaves in the cup. The powder dissolves smoothly into milk rather than clumping on the surface, which is the usual complaint with cocoa-based mixes.

How to make it

Dissolve two to three heaped teaspoons in 200ml of milk and stir thoroughly. Warm or cold both work, which is worth knowing in summer: the same tin makes a hot drink in January and an iced chocolate milk in July.

Use milk rather than water. Caotina is formulated for it, and made with water it tastes thin and slightly chalky, which is a waste of a 45 per cent cocoa powder.

It is also a baking ingredient

This is the part most people miss. Because it is chocolate based and high in cocoa, Noir works stirred into cake batter, brownie mix, icing or a chocolate mousse wherever you want a pronounced chocolate note without melting a bar. Treat it as a shortcut rather than a compromise: it dissolves cleanly into wet mixtures and brings its own sweetness, so pull back slightly on the sugar in the recipe.

Serving it the Swiss way

Two details make a difference. Heat the milk properly, to just below a simmer, because a 45 per cent cocoa powder needs the heat to open up and a lukewarm cup tastes flat. And stir for longer than feels necessary, twenty seconds rather than five, which is what gives the drink its body.

A spoon of it over vanilla ice cream is worth trying too. The bitterness of the dark powder against cold sweet cream is the same idea as an affogato, without the coffee.

The pack we stock

Our Caotina Noir in the 450g pack is the standard Swiss product. At two to three teaspoons a cup, that is a lot of drinks, and it keeps well in a dry cupboard.

You will find it with the rest of the range in our hot chocolate section, so you can put Blanc, Original and Noir side by side and decide which one belongs in your kitchen. Plenty of households end up keeping two, one for the children and one for after dinner.

The short answer

Caotina Noir is Caotina with the cocoa turned up to 45 per cent. Same Swiss chocolate, with the sweetness pulled back and the cocoa doing the work. If the original has ever tasted a shade too sweet, this is the one you were looking for.