With the chill of winter upon us, some days you might just want to curl up under a warm blanket with a piping-hot cup of hot chocolate in your hands. This rich indulgence can be a perfect cure for the icy winter blues with its creamy taste and comforting warmth.
This season, researchers and beverage-makers are finding new ways to make this cocoa treat taste even better. A new study by researchers at the Polytechnic University of Valencia and the University of Oxford found that cup color can make all the difference in taste perception of this beverage, as reported by the Journal of Sensory Studies. Participants reported that the hot chocolate consumed from an orange or dark-cream-colored plastic cup, compared with white and red plastic cups, tasted best. Furthermore, participants mentioned that the chocolate tasted slightly sweeter and was more aromatic in the dark-cream-colored cup, but this effect was not as strong as the taste perception effect.