Obsessed with hot chocolate? This Hotel Chocolat Velvetiser review is exactly where you should be. Anyone who wants luxurious, silky hot chocolate on a weekly or even daily basis will absolutely love this - it’s a device that will help you make delicious hot chocolate at home within a matter of minutes.
To make the most of it, you’ll need to buy Hotel Chocolat's hot chocolate pouches regularly or you'll need to buy into their hot chocolate subscription which starts at £13 and can be delivered every one, two or three months.
You can use this with any hot chocolate but if you’re going all out in buying this then it will be worth going all out on what you put in it too.
The appliance itself is basically a milk frother but the whisk has a little more to it to break up the chunks of chocolate as it melts it down, which is why hot chocolate fans have been raving over it.
I've managed to get my hands on one, and in this Hotel Chocolat Velvetiser review, I'll gladly tell you all about how I got on with it.
Hotel Chocolat Velvetiser review: price and availability
You can buy Hotel Chocolat’s Velvetiser right now from lots of different places including Amazon. Prices start at about £100 in the UK and AU$185 in Australia. Take a look at the widgets on this page to see where you buy one in your region.
Hotel Chocolat Velvetiser review: design and what's in the box
Hotel Chocolat’s Velvetiser will match just about any kitchen decor because it’s available in three sleek colourways: Copper Edition, Platinum Edition and I tested out the Charcoal Edition which has a matte metallic grey finish.
In the box, it comes with a plastic transparent lid, a magnetic whisk that you place inside it as well as two ceramic mugs and 10 single-serve hot chocolate flavours.
Using it couldn’t be more straightforward. I just had to pop the whisk inside, fill it up to the line with my chosen milk and then add a sachet of hot chocolate. Then it’s just a case of placing it on the included mains-powered base and pressing the large power button on the side.
Once your hot chocolate is ready, ridges around the rim and a long textured handle help you pour the hot chocolate into a mug or one of the included cups with lots of control and stability. It's very easy to do without any little accidents. You won't need to worry about wasting any precious chocolate or staining your worktop.
Cleaning it is super easy as well, I just put the whisk inside, filled it up to the line with cold water and added a couple of drops of washing-up liquid. Then I pressed the button and rinsed it out when it was done. I found I had to do this a couple of times to get it properly clean because some chocolate did get left behind after one cycle. Because of that, cleaning it took about 5 minutes in total.
If you want a more vigorous clean then both the whisk and the lid can also go in the dishwasher.
Hotel Chocolat Velvetiser review: performance
After you switch it on, Hotel Chocolat's Velvetiser only takes about two and a half minutes to get your hot beverage ready - the whole process couldn’t be more painless.
Before I get onto the good stuff, I also think it’s worth mentioning how quiet the Velvetiser is. Unlike a kettle, it barely makes a sound, just a soft murmur.
If I were to nitpick, one slightly annoying thing about it is that it doesn’t alert you when your drink is ready, it just switches off, so you can't wander away and forget all about it.
For the purposes of this test, I tried a few of the 10 different flavours it comes with but I’ll focus on the Hazelnut and Praline hot chocolate sachet. It was bitter but rich with chocolate, so nothing short of delicious.
Noticeably smooth and silky, it has a very light texture, especially considering the fact that it’s made from real chunks of chocolate. I was very impressed that there was no graininess at all which made it feel literally velvety to drink. The clue's in the name I guess!
You can use it to make hot chocolate but don't limit yourself to that, you could make a cold milkshake with it on a hot summer day as well. I did this by only using three-quarters the amount of milk, adding it later into a chilled glass with ice. It worked very well but it would be nice if there was a cold setting for that which both melts the chocolate and then turns it into a delicious milkshake, but you can’t have it all I suppose.
Hotel Chocolat Velvetiser review: verdict
The Hotel Chocolat Velvetiser doesn’t actually do much, but you can’t deny that what it does do, it does very well.
If you’re a huge hot choc fan and you don’t mind splashing out to get a consistently high-quality hot drink then there’s nothing else quite like it. It’s easy to use, easy to clean and very easy to drink the end result.
It would be great if you could make a milkshake with it, and the cleaning cycle could work a bit better but those are just little niggles in an otherwise excellently elegant piece of kitchen kit. It'd make a superb gift as well!
Hotel Chocolat Velvetiser review: also consider
You could get a similar result from one of the best milk frothers like the Dualit Black Milk Frother which costs a lot less than this, but it makes more at once and also has a cold setting.
Or if you don’t see the point in spending much at all, then the Ikea Produkt Milk Wand costs the same as a loaf of bread and will make your hot chocolate a little frothier than it would be otherwise.
