I’ve been a fan of the original Hotel Chocolat Velvetiser since it launched. In my opinion, nothing makes a silkier Hot Chocolate, but Hotel Chocolat has raised the bar for itself by launching the All New Velvetiser, priced at £149 from Hotel Chocolat.
Created completely in-house, the new Velvetiser has a fresh new look and a new ‘cold chocolate’ function, but it also comes with a slightly higher price point.
I was one of the first people in the UK to get my hands on the All New Velvetisers. I have been using it for the past few weeks to see if it’s a worthy upgrade for my original Velvetiser.
At a glance
The original Velvetiser was always compared to one of the best milk frothers, as that’s essentially what it was. To say that about the All-New Velvetiser would be doing it a disservice, as nothing about it looks like a traditional milk frother.
Everything about the Velvetiser has been given a fresh new look. The outside has been transformed into a statement piece for the kitchen, and every element from the whisk to the base has been reimagined to perfect that silky drinking texture and long-lasting micro foam.
However, the feature that I’m most excited about is the cold setting. This is a unique feature that promises a silky smooth ‘cold’ drinking chocolate (using real chocolate) without any heat.
Hotel Chocolat has ironed out many of the flaws in the original Velvetiser, which we’ve reviewed previously. I enjoyed testing it and have been converted to cold drinking chocolate, but I found that there is still a place for the original Velvetiser with its lower price point if you don’t buy into the cold setting.
Specs and what’s in the box
Hotel Chocolat
Velvetiser – Pebble
- RRP: £149.95
- Size: L 24.50 x W 19.10 x H 21.50 cm
- Colours: Pebble, Pewter and Chalk
- In the box: All-New Velvetiser, a curated Drinking Chocolate Selection Box, Podcup™ and Podglass™
Unboxing and setting
The All-New Velvetiser comes packed in a neat cardboard box with little to no plastic. Like the original Velvetiser, it includes two cups, the Podcup for hot chocolate and Podglass for cold chocolate, designed by ceramicist Andrew Wicks to look like a cacao pod.
The design of the All-New Velvetiser has also taken inspiration from the cacao pod. It is a beautiful appliance with ridges running around the inside and outside. The whisk has also been transformed to look like the cacao flower instead of the usual metal coil.
The outside of the Velvetiser has a matt finish in three on-trend colourways. I was testing the Pebble, which is a beautiful, earthy grey colour. All three of the colours feature the same real wood handle, which adds to the natural look.
While the appliance is a similar size to most other milk frothers, its handle makes it a little too bulky for easy storage. But, really, this appliance has been designed to look good and sit in pride of place on your kitchen worktop.
The Velvetiser is sold as a system with a selection of hot and cold drinking chocolate sachets, so it is ready to plug and play straight away. Instead of a button on the side of the Velvetiser, the new version places the controls on the base. This is intuitive to use; you flick the switch between hot and cold, and press down to start making a drink.
Making hot chocolate
Making the hot chocolate is super easy. Simply pour your chosen milk up to the max line and then add your chosen hot chocolate. The Velvetiser is designed to be used with Hotel Chocolat’s flaked chocolate sachets, and will keep mixing it until it reaches 68 to 70 degrees, the optimum temperature for melting chocolate.
The new feature for making a hot chocolate on the All-New Velvetiser is that it uses a combination of the inner pod ridges and the flower whisk instead of a metal coil to create a vortex that lets ultra-fine passages of air in. This is what helps the hot chocolate to develop its silky texture and also gives it a lovely micro foam on top, which, according to Hotel Chocolat, should hold for longer.
The whole process takes around 2 minutes when I tried it at home, from pressing the button to it being ready to drink. The finished hot chocolate was silky with a good micro-foam on top that lasted until the last sip, and it was the perfect drinking temperature.
The new flower whisk is designed to move up and down, fixing the issue of the old Velvetiser whisk occasionally getting stuck on chocolate flakes. The hot chocolate flakes were perfectly mixed into the milk. I tried it with oat milk and cow’s milk, and both delivered the same results.
However, there were two drawbacks I found. When making the hot chocolate it was tricky to see the max line on the All-New Velvetiser as it’s slightly hidden on the thin stem of the whisk. I was also disappointed to find that in a couple of my tests using cow’s milk, the milk was slightly burnt onto the bottom of the new Velvetiser; this is something that I never experienced with the original one.
Making cold chocolate
The cold chocolate function is the most exciting part of the All-New Velvetiser. Most of the science to make this work has gone into Hotel Chocolat’s new cold drinking chocolate sachets, which are made from real chocolate and milled into a fine powder that it blends with the milk without any heat needed to melt it.
The downside to this is that you are tied into buying Hotel Chocolat’s cold sachets for the full effect. Fortunately, the new flavours I’ve tested, such as banana, crème brulee and the classic 70% chocolate, are all delicious, making this an easier extra expensive to swallow.
In the same way as you’d make a hot chocolate, I poured milk up to the max line, added the sachet, twisted the dial to cold, and pressed go. The process takes around two minutes, and you can see that it uses a slightly different whisking pattern from the hot setting to mix-in the finely milled chocolate.
The results were silky smooth with a lovely and impressive cold froth on top. It didn’t have the powdery taste you get with other cold chocolate drinks, but it did leave a powdery residue around the edge of the Velvetiser.
The mixture isn’t actively cooled during the process, so for a proper iced drink, you will need to pour it over ice. However, I found that when using milk straight from the fridge, it remained cold through the whole mixing process, so I could skip the addition of ice and avoid watering it down.
Cleaning
One of my favourite parts about the original Velvetiser was how easy it was to clean, and the same can be said for the new version. Even with the smallest hint of burnt milk on the bottom, it washed out instantly, and barely needed going over with a sponge.
The whisk is held in place with magnets, so it’s super easy to pop out and rinse. The only tricky part is that the inner ridges take a little longer to clean properly and dry than they would on a milk frother or hot chocolate maker with flat sides.
In the context of a busy morning, I was able to mix up a drink, wash up the Velvetiser and get out the door with my drink in a flask in 5 minutes.
How it compares to other hot chocolate makers
The most natural comparison to the new Velvetiser is with the original version that was made for Hotel Chocolate by Dualit. The older version will continue to be sold, and it is currently £100 at John Lewis, so it is still a good option if you are on a budget and just want a straightforward hot chocolate maker.
For the extra £49 with the new version, you are getting a unique cold chocolate drinking function, a slightly silkier hot chocolate and something that will look very beautiful on your kitchen counter.
Personally, I am surprised by the price tag of the All-New Velvetiser. It’s justified slightly by being part of a system with everything you need; however, considering that to use one of the functions you have to buy Hotel Chocolate sachets (usually £14.95 for a box of 10), it all adds up.
In contrast, you can pick up several milk frothers and hot chocolate makers now for under £100, like the Dualit’s Cocoatiser for £70. This hot chocolate maker is from the same people behind the OG Velvetiser; it is also an effective milk frother and matcha latte maker, too.
Should you buy it?
I enjoyed using the All-New Velvetiser; it looks great, and I’m a complete convert to the cold chocolate function. However, at £149 and the extra expense of buying cold and hot chocolates from Hotel Chocolat on top of that, it won’t be for everyone.
You should buy the All-New Velvetiser if you are a hot chocolate connoisseur and will appreciate the silky finish and impressive microfoam. You enjoy cold drinking chocolate and want something more elevated and delicious than chocolate milk, and you have space to display it on your countertop (you’re going to want to show it off!)
You shouldn’t buy the All-New Velvetiser if you only drink your chocolate hot, you don’t want to be tied into using Hotel Chocolat products, and you want something relatively small and affordable that can double up as a milk frother for coffees.
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