Essentially, cocoa powder is cocoa beans that are dried, fermented, roasted, and ground into the powder. Natural cocoa powder is lighter in color, has a higher acidity level and has a noticeably more bitter, rich chocolate flavor. It’s great for baking chocolate cakes, brownies, cookies, and many other baked recipes. Dutch cocoa powder is darker and deeper in color and has lower acidity because it's alkalized with the Dutching process. The key difference comes in during baking, because you will need to know which leavener to use. Since we are making hot chocolate and not baking, it won’t matter much which one you use.