I've loved the hot chocolate from Tim Hortons since I was a little girl and with the temperature starting to drop I wanted to see how I could get the goodness of their drink from the comfort of my own home — and save some money.
I picked up a tin of the Tim Hortons mix at the grocery store a while ago so I could have some as a before-bed comforting treat, and my partner and I have almost finished the can.
The price of a tin of Tim Hortons hot chocolate is fairly reasonable at $5.99 for 500 grams, but I've recently been experimenting with adding more house brands to my grocery shop to help lower the price of my bill.
I've been pleasantly surprised with the quality and taste of certain store brand products, so I decided to see if any of Canada's grocery stores make comparably good hot chocolate.
I picked up no name and President's Choice brand hot chocolate mix from Loblaws, Selection brand from Metro and Great Value from Walmart and tested them all out with water. I did look for Compliments brand at FreshCo, but all they had was a salted caramel hot chocolate which looked delicious but unfortunately did not meet the parameters of this taste test.
Here's how Canada's store brand hot chocolates fared in this delightful taste test.
No name
Sarah holding a tin of no name hot chocolate mix from Loblaws, $3.99 for 500 grams.
While no name mix tastes fine, it in no way tastes like hot chocolate, which is bizarre. It tastes like sweet water (almost like vanilla oat milk), but it has no flavour of chocolate at all.
It does coat the inside of the mouth nicely, but I can't say this is something I'd buy again — that being said, if it was offered to me after a freezing night of skating at Nathan Phillips Square, I wouldn't say no to it!
Taste: 0.5/5
Price: $3.99 (for 500 grams)
Price per 100 grams: $0.80
Selection
Sarah holding a tin of Selection brand hot chocolate mix from Metro, $4.49 for 500 grams.
Once again, I was surprised to find Metro's Selection brand hot chocolate to have little discernable chocolate flavour. I liked it marginally more than the no name option as it wasn't as cloyingly sweet, but there were no cocoa notes to speak of, and I found it to be a little drying on the tongue.
Taste: 0.7/5
Price: $4.49 (for 500 grams)
Price per 100 grams: $0.90
Great Value
Sarah holding a tin of Great Value brand hot chocolate mix from Walmart, 450 grams for $4.27.
It was sweet, comforting and creamy, but again, there was no chocolate flavour. It kind of tasted like a Timmies French vanilla, so I did enjoy it, but it's not something I'd buy if i was looking for comforting ho cho.
Price per 100 grams: $0.95
President's Choice
Sarah holding a tin of President's Choice brand hot chocolate mix from Loblaws, 750 grams for $5.49.
When I poured the hot water into the President's Choice hot chocolate mix, the difference between it and the previous house brands was immediately noticeable in that it had a much darker, richer colour that was mirrored in its flavour profile.
This hot chocolate is good. It has a really well-balanced cocoa-to-sweet ratio, and the presence of strong notes of chocolate in this brew really highlighted how well it pairs with the sugar for a little flavour contrast, which all the others were missing.
I also noted that "cocoa" was listed higher in the ingredients for the PC brand ho cho than the others, so that might indicate that there's a higher percentage of it in the PC option. As well, the other products seem to have far more milk in them, so perhaps that dulls whatever cocoa flavour was there in the first place.
Taste: 4/5
Price: $5.49 (for 750 grams)
Price per 100 grams: $0.73
Tim Hortons
Sarah holding a tin of Tim Hortons hot chocolate from No Frilss, $5.99 for 500 grams.
And finally, to round things off, I tested the Tim Hortons hot chocolate to see how it compared to the rest.
It has enough of the sweetness of the Great Value option paired with the mouth feel of the no name brand and the right cocoa balance that the President's Choice brought.
Overall, a delightful drink and one that tastes comforting, chocolate-y and nostalgic.
Taste: 5/5
Price: $5.99 (for 500 grams)
Price per 100 grams: $1.20
In terms of which one I'd buy again, for taste, it would definitely be the President's Choice option. It also happens to be the cheapest of all the options when you break it down by price per 100 grams, so that's an added benefit.
In fact, given that Tims is about half a dollar more than PC per 100 grams, I'd say that I'm happy to make the swap to the Loblaws brand, given how close it is in taste — those loonies and toonies add up, and times are tough!
I recently did a taste test of store brand milk chocolate bars, and while President's Choice option ranked quite highly, it got beat out by another another brand that I think could be a close substitute for Dairy Milk, which is one of my favourite chocolate treats.
That being said, unlike the hot chocolates, all of the chocolate bars did the job of tasting like actual chocolate, so perhaps you're better off buying your chocolate in bar form than mixed powder if you're out doing your shopping and looking for lower cost options than brand names!
These prices are confirmed at the time of publishing, but they can change at any time. Taxes and fees may not be included.