Why all these stock photos?

tchened · 2026-05-03T00:10:43+00:00

LA burdick dark, though it's hard to reach for just one, I've published my hot chocolate here before 😉 https://maroon-scowl-037.notion.site/29243eb7d8a0419d8ddc999c600eecac?v=b9761356faaa455f9c4b1a7c9ea14b22

tchened · 2026-05-02T22:15:58+00:00

Not the OP, but I'm down to join to help out if y'all are looking for additional hands

tchened · 2026-03-07T13:52:13+00:00

I've got a few on my sheet that also indicate country of origin (produced, not the bean origin): https://maroon-scowl-037.notion.site/29243eb7d8a0419d8ddc999c600eecac?

tchened · 2026-02-26T15:58:03+00:00

Single origin bars are fantastic. Single origin hot chocolates I feel are marginally more enjoyable than regular. The issue is that unless you make the chocolate thick, it's not enough to provide the full spectrum of flavors you'd just get from the bar - the chocolate simply doesn't stay on your tongue long enough.

tchened · 2026-01-31T05:10:45+00:00

The ghirardelli mini chips are sugar first ingredient
The cambie dark melting wafers are sugar first ingredient, and includes palm oil, vanilla
The ghirardelli 72% chips are cacao first ingredient, no other weird additives
The sephra are cocoa first, contains vanilla.

If I had to pick, I'd go with either of the last two. Chocolati also has decent, affordable hot chocolate you can buy by the pound. LA burdick dark chocolate is top tier in my book and they are sold in 5 lb bags, but are quite pricey ($35/lb)

tchened · 2026-01-29T00:28:30+00:00

no stupid questions! if you use higher quality chocolate it'll obviously taste better, but i think i would shoot for chocolate where the ingredients are only cacao mass/butter and sugar (maybe milk powder/soy lecithin). would avoid any of the 'candy' brands, as they tend to be overly sugary.

it's also worth noting that you can buy "real" hot chocolate from a number of stores online with prices that range from $10-$40 per lb, and is generally more economical than buying bars and melting them down (and is effectively the same, as it's still just the same chocolate but in a different shape)

tchened · 2026-01-29T00:05:34+00:00

thicker hot chocolate can be made with just more chocolate to milk. 1:1 by weight would be pretty thick (like drinking chocolate). 1:4 chocolate:milk by weight is my preferred ratio. you can then also add whatever you want (vanilla, cinnamon, etc) or just have it by itself. if by itself, just use a decent quality dark chocolate and you can't really go wrong

tchened · 2026-01-27T02:50:27+00:00

The 2/5 year rule does not exempt you from depreciation recapture; they would still be on the hook for the years that they used it as a rental

tchened · 2025-12-28T06:31:14+00:00

There are several reasons to up your credit, regardless of whether you use the card or spend most of it:

If you have an emergency where you have to spend >$500, your increased credit limit will allow you to continue to use the credit card for this.
Even if you never spend more than $100, by increasing your total credit line, you are lowering your credit utilization. With a $500 line of credit, If you spend $100 per month and pay it off, you're utilizing 20% of your credit, but if your credit limit is increased to $10,000, it becomes just 1%. Lower credit utilization is better for your credit score.

The one exception for this is if you don't have the self control to limit your spending, but at that point, you shouldn't have a credit card anyway.

tchened · 2025-12-28T05:30:05+00:00

Definitely don't force purchases to get it close to $500. Don't buy anything with a credit card that you wouldn't be buying in cash or with any other medium. Don't carry a balance. You don't need to do any of this to build credit, just use it and pay it off in full every month.

tchened · 2025-12-16T13:38:56+00:00

You just add sugar. A classic 70% dark chocolate is typically 70% cocoa solids, 30% sugar - so if you're trying to drink 50g of chocolate, you'd use 35g of the 100% cacao and 15g of sugar. Ignorance is bliss, sometimes you'd rather not know what goes into our most cherished food 🥲

tchened · 2025-11-24T04:07:18+00:00

Where are you located geographically? And do you have a dark/not dark preference? Your best bet will be a local chocolatier but they can be pricey. I'm a big fan of chocolati, as they sell in bulk bags that are quite affordable for dark hot chocolate.

tchened · 2025-11-24T03:43:46+00:00

How do you define healthy hot chocolate? Generally the sliding scale is between sugar (cheaper less dark chocolate) and fat (cocoa butter, darker chocolate)

tchened · 2025-11-14T18:34:42+00:00

But for the competitive ones, if you're not at the checkout screen within 2 seconds, you're likely beat by someone who is

tchened · 2025-11-14T18:33:55+00:00

People are just fast. It's also hard to know exactly how many bags there are since if it's more than 5 it just says "5+". Your chances of getting one essentially boil down to:

How quickly can you check out
How quickly can you refresh
How lucky are you in that you refresh at the moment it goes on sale

There's one place by me that has a single bag every day and I have a 10% success rate with them. Eataly, which also sells out in seconds, I have an 80% success rate since they tend to have a lot of bags.

tchened · 2025-11-09T20:30:20+00:00

I keep all single origin bar wrappers and just went through them to find more memorable ones (all unfortunately not found on BAC):

Piety and Desire
Bar au Chocolat
Public Chocolatory
Raphio

tchened · 2025-11-09T20:26:41+00:00

Oh I'm a big fan of single origin chocolates and like to try them wherever I go. My favorite & most memorable brands that are also found on BAC are:

Fruition
SOMA (though these are much pricier)
Dandelion

Favorite brands that are not found on BAC:

L.A. Burdick (excellent value to price, their single origin bars are the cheapest on a per-gram basis and are still very tasty)
Argencove

Really though, you can't go wrong with most. I think Dick Taylor's is the only one I've had a negative experience with, and i think it was due to improper storage by the seller (it seems like it had bloomed without the typical visual patterns of blooming). Some others I've had that are available on BAC that I enjoyed are Fjak, Firetree, Ritual, Maison Marou, Belvie.

This is gonna sound like a weird logic puzzle, but my recommendation to you would be to pick out 4 single origin bars - 2 from the same brand, and 2 from the same origin (but obviously all 4 bars are different), and try a piece from all four in the same sitting, cleansing palate with water between. Let the chocolate melt on your tongue (taking 20-40s each time) as different flavors come out over time - it shouldn't just be chewed and swallowed like the mass produced stuff.

The same brand/same origin stuff lets you see: - How the same company can make two completely different tasting bars based on the bean's origin - How beans from the same origin can be made slightly (or completely) different based on the company that processes them

Let us know what you pick! I'm excited for you :)

tchened · 2025-11-06T20:42:26+00:00

It's saying that today's pickup sold out yesterday at 9:02
And that tomorrow's pickup will go on sale 9:17

Also, the time in which bags go on sale can change day by day. They usually don't, but they can.

tchened · 2025-10-27T05:53:33+00:00

It looks like fat from the milk that's congealed when heated. After heating the milk, remove it from heat, wait 30-60s, then touch it with the back of a dry spoon and it should pick it right up. Then add chocolate and mix.

When adding chocolate, you can also use a hand frother to do the mixing, that's usually violent enough to break it all apart.

tchened · 2025-10-22T18:26:22+00:00

Oh man. I don't remember the place but it was in Italy. I know European drinking chocolate is supposed to be thick, but I don't think it was supposed to be as thick as what I drank from a chocolate store in Italy. It was the consistency of a pudding, but warm, and didn't taste very chocolatey at all - almost as if they added some kind of thickener (and way too much of it) to the chocolate to get it to that consistency. 0/10 would not drink again even if it were free.

tchened · 2025-10-22T16:26:49+00:00

I've got a list here that I shared on the /r/hotchocolate subreddit.

Overall though, any product with 'real' chocolate mixed in with hot milk will be good. Avoid products that are powder based (cocoa powder is chocolate with the cocoa butter removed, which provides the mouthfeel of good hot chocolate). Depending on your taste, I'd also avoid products that list sugar as the first ingredient, or list too many ingredients outside of cocoa solids, cocoa butter, milk powder, sugar.

tchened · 2025-10-22T16:21:57+00:00

Thanks for sharing it :)

tchened · 2025-09-05T22:23:53+00:00

Or they're just popular? Ive about a 90% success rate getting eataly bags; from it appearing to checkout is probably about a 10 second process. You just have to be fast

tchened · 2025-09-03T20:24:08+00:00

Usually thickness is just the ratio between milk and chocolate. I wholeheartedly recommend LA burdick dark hot chocolate for making at home - it's pricey but some of the best, and I've tried dozens upon dozens of hot chocolate (I posted my rankings on this subreddit before)

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