From San Francisco’s Dandelion Chocolate comes an all-encompassing guide covering techniques, at-home kitchen hacks, and indulgent recipes in Making Chocolate.

This recipe is a wonderful vehicle for tasting chocolates from different origins side by side. Sometimes the warm milk and brown sugar seem to draw out flavors you don’t taste as strongly in the chocolate alone, like the grassy notes in an earthy bar, or the softer citrusy finish of a berrylike chocolate. Note that stronger flavors can be amplified in a warm drink as well, which is why we usually steer clear of chocolates that are especially tart and recommend something rounder and more classically chocolatey. But, you do you.

This hot chocolate is our most popular drink, and it tastes a lot like a pure melted chocolate bar. This recipe was developed by our first pastry chef, Phil Ogiela, who’s also responsible for the House Hot Chocolate and the Mission Hot Chocolate. It’s a rich sipping chocolate, a cross between the strong, water-based hot chocolate in Paris and the almost thick-as-pudding Italian kind. An Italian customer once told us it was better than anything he could find at home, and we’ll just go ahead and believe him.