3 ms·

I guess it's mainly that "better" is largely subjective and the people pitching bitter, high price, high cocoa bars usually have an axe to grind. Often they use

I guess it's mainly that "better" is largely subjective and the people pitching bitter, high price, high cocoa bars usually have an axe to grind. Often they use various tricks to sell a tiny sliver of chocolate, using cardboard to hide how thin it is, fancy packaging to distract you and up market branding to make you feel better about it. Personally I'm fine with what market forces deliver - mainly UK focused bars with some variety for those who like to stand out for whatever reason. I'm glad that US chocolate doesn't generally take much of the UK market as it has a tendency to taste rancid to my palette (but again probably highly subjective, each to their own!)

technothrasher 5y ago
Granted at the start, I'm in the US, so I'm not sure what it's like in the UK. Sure, there's plenty of Hershey/Cadbury type cheap (but often satisfying) stuff here, and plenty of expensive crap that's nothing but branding, and sounds like what you're describing. But there's also a huge variety of high cocoa, low sugar bars available that are great tasting, not overly expensive, and not skimpy. Once you skip all the sugar and diary, the complexities of the cacao flavors come through so much stronger, and different chocolates can have very different flavor profiles. It's really a different product from the strongly sweetened chocolate bars. It's definitely true that chocolate snobbery is rampant, and its annoying (as you say, to each their own), but to dismiss the variety of dark, less sweet chocolates available as people having and axe to grind is a shame.
brnt 5y ago
> pitching bitter, high price, high cocoa bars You are missing a wide range in between. I hate buttery fakeolat, I also am not interested in eating raw cacao beans (ie pure chocolate). Both are idiotic assaults on the tastebuds. Never realized how good I had it in the Netherlands. The fakeolat is pretty rare (cheap, bottom of the barrel kid chocolat that no sane adult goes near) and the cacao purist I simply ignore.

technothrasher 5y ago

Granted at the start, I'm in the US, so I'm not sure what it's like in the UK. Sure, there's plenty of Hershey/Cadbury type cheap (but often satisfying) stuff here, and plenty of expensive crap that's nothing but branding, and sounds like what you're describing. But there's also a huge variety of high cocoa, low sugar bars available that are great tasting, not overly expensive, and not skimpy. Once you skip all the sugar and diary, the complexities of the cacao flavors come through so much stronger, and different chocolates can have very different flavor profiles. It's really a different product from the strongly sweetened chocolate bars. It's definitely true that chocolate snobbery is rampant, and its annoying (as you say, to each their own), but to dismiss the variety of dark, less sweet chocolates available as people having and axe to grind is a shame.

brnt 5y ago

> pitching bitter, high price, high cocoa bars You are missing a wide range in between. I hate buttery fakeolat, I also am not interested in eating raw cacao beans (ie pure chocolate). Both are idiotic assaults on the tastebuds. Never realized how good I had it in the Netherlands. The fakeolat is pretty rare (cheap, bottom of the barrel kid chocolat that no sane adult goes near) and the cacao purist I simply ignore.