Café Caps S’mores Premium Hot Cocoa

‘Tis the season to be chilly. Kids everywhere are using any sort of winter outdoor activity as a bargaining chip for hot chocolate. “I played outside in the snow for 3 minutes. May I have some hot chocolate?”

Maybe you’re getting bored with the Swiss Miss. Is there something else that you can enjoy on a frosty winter day?

There is, thanks to good old Café Caps. (I’ll refer to them as “Cap’n Café” from this point forward.)

Just load a plastic cup of s’mores premium hot cocoa into your Keurig, enjoy, and then let a sea turtle choke to death on the K-cup in the ocean later.

Strengths: smells, grahams, and cocoa

When preparing some Cap’n for my poor kids who braved a grueling 180 seconds in the snow, I couldn’t help but admire the delicious smell. This stuff brings a fantastical s’mores aroma into your home, transforming it into a storybook snowy cottage with frosted windowpanes.

The hot chocolate tastes good, better than your standard politically-neutral lady’s instant powder. On top of that, there is an included Dixie cup full of chocolate chips and marshmallows that you can mix in and watch melt into delicious goo.

One nice touch is that you can taste some graham flavor. The forgotten cousin of the s’more is here.

Weakness: artificial aftertaste

It smells good. It looks good. It tastes good (at first).

There was something about the aftertaste on this one that reminded me of drinking a Diet Pepsi. (My parents used to order it by the pitcher, and I always just thought that Pizza Hut Pepsi was exceptionally bad.)

I double-checked the packaging for info on some artificial sweetener being included like Stevia and couldn’t find anything other than “artificial flavoring.” Not sure what’s going on here.

Still a win

Sure, you’re causing fish to die and plastic to dissolve into our soil over the course of thousands of years. And yes, it tastes like the sugar in the pink packets.

Ultimately, Cap’n S’mores Cocoa is still an upgrade over other grocery store varieties and worth a drink on a frigid day.

One final tip. We got rid of our Keurig brewer long ago. To give ole Cap’n a whirl, we were able to just peel the lid off, empty the cocoa powder into a mug, and mix in hot water. Pretty sure that’s what the Keurig does anyway.