A heap of fine dark chocolate flakes on a slate beside a cup of thick drinking chocolate, a whisk, a strip of blood orange peel and a few dark cherries

Ocelot Chocolate: The Dundee Tins Made from Shaved Bars

September 29, 2026

Ocelot, a Scottish chocolate maker founded in an Edinburgh kitchen in 2013 and now based in Dundee, fills its drinking chocolate tins with flakes shaved from its own 70 percent dark bars, made to be whisked into warm milk over the heat until the cup thickens. The hot chocolate versus drinking chocolate guide covers how drinking chocolate differs from hot cocoa.

From an Edinburgh kitchen to Dundee

Ocelot says Matt and Ish founded it in 2013 in their Edinburgh kitchen. Ish is an illustration graduate and handles the company's design work. Ocelot now makes its chocolate in what it calls a micro factory in the centre of Dundee, with a team of four working alongside Matt and Ish. Counting the founders, that is six people.

A maker, not a bean-to-bar roaster

A bean-to-bar maker buys raw cacao and does the roasting, winnowing, grinding and conching itself (the bean-to-bar chocolate guide explains the term). Ocelot starts one stage later. It works from couverture, finished chocolate made by Original Beans, which Ocelot describes as developed to keep the natural flavour of the beans through careful fermentation, roasting and conching. From there Ocelot adds the flavourings and, for the tins, shaves the finished bars.

Ocelot calls Original Beans its sister company as well as its supplier, and says all Ocelot chocolate is made with Original Beans cacao, which it describes as regenerative. Ocelot says Original Beans won the Good Egg Award for World's Most Ethical Chocolate in both 2023 and 2024.

The cacao: Virunga, Congo

Both drinking chocolates are made from cacao grown in Virunga National Park in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. For the Black Cherry tin, Ocelot names the beans as rare Amelonado, grown regeneratively by a cooperative in the park's forests in eastern Congo. Original Beans says it has worked on the ground in Congo since 2008. Its own Virunga 70 percent couverture lists morello cherries and black tea as the main tasting notes, with berries and nuts behind them.

The two tins, side by side

The two tins are the Black Cherry drinking chocolate (shop Black Cherry drinking chocolate) and the Blood Orange drinking chocolate (shop Blood Orange drinking chocolate). Ocelot describes each tin as pure shavings of the corresponding 70 percent bar plus a little raw cane sugar. Both are certified organic and labelled vegan and GMO-free. Ocelot says its chocolate contains no emulsifiers and no preservatives.

	Black Cherry	Blood Orange
Made from	Shavings of the Black Cherry 70% bar	Shavings of the Blood Orange 70% bar
Ingredients, in order	Cacao mass, raw cane sugar, cacao butter, natural black cherry flavour	Cacao mass, raw cane sugar, cacao butter, blood orange oil, vanilla extract
Flavouring share	0.13 percent	Under 1 percent blood orange oil
Cacao solids	70% minimum	70% minimum
Tin	200 g	200 g
Labelled	Organic (certified); vegan; GMO-free	Organic (certified); vegan; GMO-free

At 0.13 percent, the natural black cherry flavour in a 28 g serving comes to less than 0.04 g. The Blood Orange version adds vanilla extract as well as the orange oil. Ocelot says the Blood Orange 70% bar won 3 stars at the Great Taste Awards 2025, and the Great Taste Awards guide covers what three stars means.

How far a tin goes

Ocelot's method is 3 heaped tablespoons, about 28 g, stirred into 200 ml of warmed milk, then whisked over the heat until smooth and thickened. Everything below is worked out from that serving and the label minimums.

Measure	Figure	How it is worked out
Cups per 200 g tin	Seven, with a little left over	200 g divided by 28 g is 7.1
Cacao solids per cup	At least 19.6 g	70% of 28 g
Sugar per cup	About 8.4 g at most	The remaining 30%, less the flavouring
Milk per cup	200 ml, about 6.8 US fl oz	200 ml divided by 29.57 ml per fl oz
Cups from one 70 g bar	Two and a half	70 g divided by 28 g

The last row matters because the tins are made from the bars. According to Ocelot, the Black Cherry tin is shaved from the Black Cherry 70% bar (shop Black Cherry 70% bar), with a little raw cane sugar added. Shaved finely, one 70 g bar comes to two and a half 28 g servings, without that added sugar. Because the percentage is a minimum, the sugar figure is a ceiling. The chocolate percentage guide explains why 70 percent is a floor, not an exact measure.

Milk, and the vegan question

The chocolate itself contains no dairy ingredients, and both tins are labelled vegan. Any dairy in the cup comes from the milk. Whisked into oat, soy or another plant milk, the whole cup stays vegan.

For anyone with a milk allergy, the label says the chocolate may contain traces of milk, along with tree nuts, peanuts, seeds including sesame and mustard, soya, gluten-containing cereals, eggs and celery. That is a precautionary cross-contact statement. Milk is not an ingredient.

For more ways to make a cup, see the drinking chocolate three ways recipe guide. For serving a crowd, see the hot chocolate bar party guide.

Other Ocelot chocolate and other drinking chocolates

The same Dundee team makes Ocelot's bars, including Matcha Crunch (shop Matcha Crunch) and a Lemon Olive Oil dark chocolate (shop Lemon Olive Oil dark chocolate). Other drinking chocolates include Dick Taylor's Peppermint Drinking Chocolate (shop Dick Taylor Peppermint Drinking Chocolate) and Dandelion's House Hot Chocolate Mix (shop Dandelion House Hot Chocolate Mix). Both makers have their own guides: the Dick Taylor producer guide and the Dandelion producer guide.

Flakes are chocolate, so the storage rules in the chocolate bloom and storage guide apply. Keep the tin cool and dry.

More chocolate makers are covered in the craft chocolate guide.