Yawn Brew Hot Chocolate Advent Calendar Review

Introduction

Its that time of year again, a time that's synonymous, for many of us, with chocolate. Its a time when its totally acceptable to stuff your face with as much chocolate as you can physically eat, and a time when many of us give our loved ones a chocolately gift to show our appreciation. Other than Easter, that time is Christmas. Unlike Easter, the weeks before Christmas also provide opportunities for chocolate, albeit often just a bite's worth per day, in the form of advent calendars. I know they are often expensive for what you get, compared to normal chocolate products, but the fun and excitement of opening a little door everyday and wondering what it is you've got that day, just can't be beaten. Advent calendars were always one of the things I looked forward to most as a child, especially the one my mum made and filled with little cadbury chocolates, and I have refused to grow out of them! Fortunately, these days there are plenty of advent calendars out there aimed at adults, as they have realised that its not just children that enjoy them! There are now advent calendars for almost every product you can think of, from gin, to cheese, to beer, to beauty products. But for me, chocolate is the only thing that I would want in an advent calendar.

Normally I would go for something fairly simple, with just pure chocolate behind the doors, but this year, I fancied something a bit different. I find a single chocolate per day can sometimes not feel enough, so I was on the lookout for something more substantial, but which wouldn't break the bank (my budget was £30 maximum). I eventually came across the Yawn Brew hot chocolate calendar, which immediately caught my attention. I had not really come across a hot chocolate advent calendar before, other than Whittards, so this was quite exciting. I had a look at what was on offer, and there were loads of different, interesting sounding flavours, including some really out there ones (eg Christmas carrot). The variety sounded good, plus the hot chocolate was real chocolate, rather than powder, which is pretty much non negotiable for me at this point when it comes to hot chocolate. I had a look around the website and it seemed like Yawn Brew were passionate about creating high quality products, so I was feeling confident that this calender would be good. After mulling it over for a bit, I took the plunge and ordered myself one, well in advance in case it sold out (which it did indeed do a few weeks later). Having resisted the temptation to open it early for weeks on end, I have finally been able to enjoy it throughout the month and can now give my opinion on whether or not it was worth it! Take a look at my thoughts below.

The Packaging

Always an important aspect, even if its not the most important. I was struck at how beautiful the illustration was on the box and at how smart it all looked. There was also plenty of useful information dotted all over the box, with all of the flavours listed on the back and matched up to each number, so you knew which flavour you were getting each day; suggestions for toppings; instructions on how to make up the hot chocolate; a list of the different milks you can use which is especially useful if you avoid dairy and a blank star rating for each hot chocolate for you to fill in to give it a rating. They had clearly taken great care with the box and making it so it could  help you to get the most out of your hot chocolates, so I was very impressed with this. On the downside though, each door was numbered consecutively, rather than randomised as with nearly all other advent calendars, so that unfortunately did take away the fun of trying to find that day's number, which was a real shame). 

The sachets were another aspect I was impressed with. Again, as with the box, clearly a lot of thought had been put into something which you would think of as being fairly insignificant. Each sachet was numbered and had different illustrations (eg christmas puddings, penguins, bears etc) and that in itself was something that was delightful and I looked forward to seeing what this was each day. The sachets were also recyclable, despite looking like they wouldn't be, so that was also a nice surprise. Infact, they mentioned on the box that the entire calendar is either recyclable or biodegradable, which was definitely a win win for me as the environment is a very important issue - companies should be aiming to make as many of their products as environmentally friendly as possible.

There was another thing that was totally unexpected but added a fun twist. The staff at Yawn Brew had hidden a raffle ticket behind door 12 in every calendar, with instructions to check their Instagram page. It seems they were running a competition, with two numbers being drawn each day. Obviously I wasn't lucky enough to win anything, but it was still a nice extra which added to the excitement and experience of the advent calendar.

The Hot Chocolate

On to the most important bit! There was an astounding number of flavours in this calendar, a number which was well above my expectations. I would have expected maybe a few flavours at most, but there was actually 19 in total! I was definitely pleased to see such a wide variety and some of the flavours sounded really interesting and adventurous, rather than the bog standard, fairly safe flavours that every chocolate company makes. These flavours were there of course, with chocolate orange and salted caramel making an appearance, but we had flavours such as "enchanted forest", "chocolate biscuit", "cherry choc cheesecake" and "banana lama cocoa". Having now had the opportunity to taste all of these flavours, my opinion is that some of them were excellent, such as the salted caramel and pumpkin spice (which had just the right amount of spice without being overwhelming). The "chilli willy" flavour, which was, of course, a chilli hot chocolate, I thought was fantastic, as you could really taste the flavour of chilli (something which is sadly lacking from other brands, such as Hotel Chocolat), and had a decent enough kick to it. Some flavours were fairly average and sometimes lacking flavour, while some flavours were really not good at all. The chocolate orange had almost no orange flavour at all, while the cherry choc cheesecake had a strange, artificial taste that I couldn't pinpoint. Only one flavour however was inedible - the rose flavour, which had clearly fallen victim to too much rose flavouring, meaning it tasted like perfume. Overall though, most of the flavours were pretty good, if sometimes slightly lacking in flavour, and I enjoyed trying them all. I certainly enjoyed having such a wide variety and not having the flavours repeat all the time.

In terms of the chocolate itself, it was a 65% cocoa dark chocolate and was the base of all the hot chocolate flavours. Made up with semi skimmed milk, the chocolate had a delicious, high quality flavour. I thought the chocolate taste was really quite good considering each sachet contained only 23g, but I would have preferred to see more chocolate in each hot chocolate as it just wasn't quite chocolately enough for me (I often drink Hotel Chocolat hot chocolate which contains 35g per sachet). I used a velvetiser to make up my hot chocolate, which takes a maximum of around 200ml. If I had followed Yawn Brew's suggestion of adding 300ml of milk to the hot chocolate, I think it would have diluted the flavour far too much and would not have been very chocolately at all, so perhaps a rethink is needed so that their hot chocolate is as good as it can be - if you can't really taste it then what's the point? But done my way, it was still pretty damn good though, even if it wasn't perfect. It still made for a fairly rich drink with a chocolate that had a good depth of flavour. If I had any other criticisms, it would be that it was just a bit too sweet and I would have liked to have seen a variety of strengths of chocolate as well as just different added flavours, but these certainly weren't big issues and didn't get in the way of my enjoyment of the calendar. 

The Verdict

Overall this was a really good advent calendar and I got a lot of enjoyment out of it, far more than I had previously with standard chocolate calendars - it was definitely nice to have a whole hot chocolate to curl up on the sofa with every single day. A lot of care had clearly been put into this, especially with the packaging, and it certainly showed. I was pleased to see such a huge number of flavours, which meant that I had something different to try nearly every day, while the chocolate itself was of high quality. Many of the varieties we had were also really inventive and it was exciting to try some less conventional flavours, ones that we haven't all tried many times over. On the downside, the flavours were sometimes hit and miss, with a couple being downright awful and I felt some of them needed more flavour, despite a few of them really knocking it out of the park. Unfortunately, this did let it down somewhat, being such an integral aspect of the experience and will sadly mean a point or two will be deducted from my score. It is something I think that really needs to be worked on for future calendars/hot chocolate packs. I also thought that there needed to have been more chocolate in each sachet as it wasn't quite chocolately enough for me, although it wasn't too far off! I did however really appreciate that the whole calendar was environmentally friendly and the little competition that was a complete surprise and added a little more excitement. 

Overall though, I thought this was a wonderful, memorable calendar, and, despite the issues, it was worthy of the price. For £27, I thought it was great value, especially considering there are many high quality chocolate calendars priced similarly that only grant you a square of chocolate, or a truffle per day. I would absolutely consider it again in the future, although I would be even more likely to if some of the flavours were improved. I would also recommend this to anyone who is looking for a hot chocolate advent calendar next year, or just something more substantial than the usual chocolate calendar offerings. In the meantime however, they do sell packs of hot chocolate on their website and most of the flavours from this calendar appear to be available. I would suggest checking these out if you don't want to wait until the calendar is available again next Christmas, or if you would just like some good hot chocolate. Just make sure you definitely avoid the rose flavour though!

Score - 8/10

Pros - high quality, wide variety of flavours, innovative flavours, nicely designed packaging,                              environmentally friendly packaging, competition as a little extra, reasonably priced

Cons - some flavours hit and miss, not enough chocolate, only one type of chocolate base (65% dark)

The advent calendar was priced this year at £27 and is available on the Yawn Brew website during the run up to Christmas. Packs of hot chocolate (250g) are also available to purchase on the website at £5.95 each.

The full list of flavours from the advent calendar: dark, salted caramel, pumpkin spice, chocolate biscuit, campfire marshmallow, ginger, christmas carrot, banana lama cocoa, chilli willy, chocolate orange, cinnamon socks, caramel rum pud, cherry choc cheesecake, bora bora coconut, Irish dream, chocolate roses, sticky toffee, santa's cocoa and enchanted forest.

All photos taken by Rebecca Manley