13 ms·

Kit Kat Conspiracy (2002)

• TrainedMonkey 13y ago
  "This story is dark like dark chocolate and dramatic like that swirly dark-white chocolate" pronounced TrainedMonkey while munching on thin mint girl scout cookie. Seriously do not buy Hershey's products.
• pudquick 13y ago
  Not sure where the conspiracy part is? American branded "milk chocolate" (and specifically the process that Hershey's does) has much lower cocoa solids (and additive control) requirements than elsewhere. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Types_of_chocolate http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Types_of_chocolate
  • mcormier 13y ago
    Who cares. This line was brilliant: "I plan on purchasing an adequate amount of, "KIT KAT," product while I am here in Japan to run double-blind taste trials when I return to US, as I have done with some European and Canadian product in the past. I will inform you of the results of these trials."
    • reality_czech 13y ago
      That only makes sense if you imagine it being spoken in the voice of Comic Book Guy from the Simpsons.
      • quarterto 13y ago
        Worst. Kit Kat. Ever.
    • joelthelion 13y ago
      He should inform the press and TV networks, that would make for a good story.
• hcarvalhoalves 13y ago
  Makes sense. Hershey's chocolate here (Brazil) taste like crap too - while although more expensive, I'm yet to find a bad product from Nestlé. I believe in the US they mainly ride on brand recognition. The bad taste is due to less cocoa content and more filler, like palm oil, or even paraffin (yeah, candle wax).
  • aethr 13y ago
    Places like Brazil and Australia (where I live) tend to add a larger amount of emulsifiers to commerically produced chocolate. This helps in keeping production costs down, and it also raises the melting temperature of the chocolate so that it doesn't melt in the wrapper while it sits on store shelves. You typically will not find noticable amounts of added emulsifiers in cooking chocolate, as they detract from the taste and texture of the final product. Furthermore, pure cooking chocolate should be able to be melted, reshaped and reset (tempered) over and over again with no degredation in quality. Chocolate with added emulsifiers, however, is easy to spot because when it melts and re-sets, it has white splotches on the surface. If your milk chocolate has white bits, that typically means its a lower quality, like basically every mass produced chocolate in US / Australia / probably elsewhere. If you really enjoy chocolate, you should consider buying cooking chocolate. :)
• ForHackernews 13y ago
  Hey, everything2! Nice to see them on HN. I think maybe I'm finally ready... http://everything2.com/title/I+think+I%2527m+finally+ready+for+an+everything2+account http://everything2.com/title/I+think+I%2527m+finally+ready+f...
  • sanswork 13y ago
    Every time I see everything2 I am amazed it still exists and even more amazed it isn't just an archive by now. Then get stuck in a maze clicking around for hours.
  • bzalasky 13y ago
    I thought the same thing. Back in the early aughts, I was quite active on e2. To me at least, it made writing an RPG.
• yetanotherphd 13y ago
  Those answers are all reasonable, except for the use of "specific specification" and attributing taste differences to differences in the raw agricultural ingredients, rather than the incompleteness of the product specification.
• chbrown 13y ago
  He promised double-blind trials, but then ran a single-blind trial, and only reluctantly single-blind. And he didn't report preferences, but only that his sample could distinguish between Kit Kats. Science, man! Where's the love?
• gojomo 13y ago
  Note Nestle itself also alters its formula for hot climates like Malaysia: http://www.nestleprofessional.com/uk/en/SiteArticles/Pages/Facts_About_KitKat.aspx?jse=0 http://www.nestleprofessional.com/uk/en/SiteArticles/Pages/F...
• regal 13y ago
  I agree, the Kit Kats outside of the U.S. are quite different from their U.S. counterparts. Although, to me, the taste of the Nestle-manufactured non-U.S. Kit Kat bars are far inferior to the Hershey-manufactured U.S. Kit Kat bars I grew up with. This might be down to the difference between those of us who are supertasters and are most focused on flavor, and those of us who are nontasters and are most focused on texture [1] . I notice that the author's points of contention revolve predominantly around texture, not flavor (chocolate heaven for him is "so rich, so smooth, so crunchy"), whereas when I think about the differences in the Kit Kats, my brain is entirely focused on taste and could care less about texture. Being long-term situated outside the U.S., I frequently find myself wishing the Hershey-made Kit Kat bars were available to buy up and take to the movies here, but instead end up passing over the comparatively less appealing Nestle version and purchasing M&Ms, which mostly taste the same the world over (though I haven't had them in Hong Kong), instead. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supertaster http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supertaster
  • secstate 13y ago
    1. Are you calling yourself a Supertaster? 2. No one can argue with preference. But as linked to earlier in these comments, it is well documented that the U.S. has a very very lax policy on what is allowed to constitute "milk chocolate." Any manufacturer not taking advantage of said lax standards would be idiots. Of course, anyone trying to argue that American chocolate literally has better chocolate flavor and that they know because they are a supertaster is quite wide of the mark indeed. American chocolate != real chocolate.
    • nestlequ1k 13y ago
      So any manufacturer who doesn't produce a product at a minimum level of the government policy is an idiot? It's as if you don't trust consumers at all. We need government policy to define exactly what chocolate needs to be, otherwise no one will make anything good. How bout this? Buy a nice bar of Godiva chocolate. Or one of the many premium chocolates you can find at most grocery stores or online. And yes, American KitKat's are shit.
• rikacomet 13y ago
  Seems like somebody had a bad Halloween :P The kitkat made in India, was nearly a market leader in the 90's and even early 2000's. But over time it lost out to new products from Cadbury. The Kitkat here recently improved when someone woke up from a slumber in the kitchen of Nestle. I have eaten Kit Kat brought from middle east, specially from U.A.E/Saudi Arabia multiple times. Some imported, some directly bought. The difference in Indian and Middle-Asian Kit Kat is also noticeable, the MA version being firmer, but Indian version being more heavy both in cocoa content, and wafer in recent years. In fact, Kit Kat only suffers in India because of it poor pricing strategy. For a lot of time, it was price at INR 6/12, which is kinda pain when buying stuff.
• iM8t 13y ago
  This is true for all sorts of sweets and drinks outside of the US. For example - in the Baltic countries you cannot buy real Coca Cola. It sure looks like the real deal, but actually it's `a soft drink with cola flavours`.
  • salgernon 13y ago
    You also cannot purchase "real" coca Cola in the us as local bottlers all use high fructose corn syrup instead of cane sugar. However, many small grocers will stock coke made in Mexico and shipped north. It usually costs about 2x the local variant. I'm really surprised that the local bottlers aren't swayed by the possibility of charging more. Coke's response about their use of high fructose corn syrup is a claim that their customers are not able to tell the difference. bollox I say.
    • rqebmm 13y ago
      Oh man there's nothing better for a hangover than an ice-cold Mexican Coke
    • NamTaf 13y ago
      Hahahahahahaahaha really? We occasionally get it as a novelty here in AU and US Coke is so much more sickly. Real cane sugar shits all over HFCS.
    • cclogg 13y ago
      Oh man yeah tell me about it! The good news is you can find lots of specialty colas that make up for it lol. I live in Vancouver but down near Seattle this company has lots of great stuff: http://www.orcabeverage.com/ http://www.orcabeverage.com/
    • jdrobins2000 13y ago
      Pepsi, however, offers "Throwback" versions of Pepsi and Mountain Dew which use cane sugar instead of HFCS, and seem to be commonly available at many normal grocery stores in 12-packs for the same price as the regular ones. I prefer it to regular Coke, though Mexican Coke is a little better (but also much more expensive). I visited the World of Coke in Atlanta a couple years ago, and at the end of the tour they had machines dispensing samples of all kinds of their international sodas. I was disappointed to find that Mexican coke was not offered, although in retrospect, not surprising as they probably would prefer not to advertise how much better cane sugar Coke is.
• ck2 13y ago
  I figured this would be about android 4.4.2 Taste of kitkats seems kinda trivial when protesters are being shot in the Ukraine (on same HN page).
  • kalleboo 13y ago
    An article about Android 4.4.2 would be less trivial than protesters being shot in the Ukraine? And why are you reading HN instead of doing something about the Ukraine situation?
  • manicdee 13y ago
    and despite the protesters being shot in the Ukraine you were browsing HN?
    • iopq 13y ago
      How else can people find out about stuff that matters?
  • forgottenpaswrd 13y ago
    And protesters being shot in Ukraine seems kinda trivial when you consider what is happening on Syria, Iraq, or in lots of African countries. Here we have(Spain) a refugee from Africa that was forced to kill his parents as a kid, his sisters were raped in front of him and then he never saw them again. Now the war is over on the paper, but it is not for the population. I for one welcome Kit Kat trivial stories. There is a problem about news, we focus only on the worse news of the world, so the only "approved behavior" is to live chronically depressed(there will always be bad news).
• ehPReth 13y ago
  Do the links littered throughout the article bother anyone else?
  • eropple 13y ago
    Are you not familiar with E2? It's like a wiki where a quarter to a half of the userbase have consumed some minor hallucinogens before contributing.
    • ehPReth 13y ago
      Ah, I see -- I haven't heard of E2 before
      • eropple 13y ago
        No worries. It's sort of niche. There's a lot of overlap with early-ish Slashdot (some shared personalities/admins).
• anigbrowl 13y ago
  2002, why do I care?
• dotBen 13y ago
  And the OP didn't even discover the legendary Kit Kat Chunky yet...
• fernly 13y ago
  The article and all comments are dated 2000. So has anything changed in 14 years?
  • SwellJoe 13y ago
    I'm pretty sure the quality of American candy has continued to decline. Or, I may have acquired higher standards in the intervening time. I'm nearly always disappointed when I eat a candy bar, of almost any sort. They're too sugary and simplistic to be satisfying. Calling most of them "chocolate" is an insult to actual chocolate.
    • thaumasiotes 13y ago
      > Or, I may have acquired higher standards in the intervening time. Don't discount this idea too much. There was a sea change in my dietary inclinations around the time I was 20-21 years old; I started preferring fatty foods to sugary foods. I'll still eat candy, but I'm much less attached to it now.
      • SwellJoe 13y ago
        I think it's a little of both. It's not just candy, either. Most foods have seen a decline in quality. You can still buy actual food that is of high quality, but it costs a lot more. But, since I was a kid (which was a long time ago...well before 2003), I've seen grocery stores evolve to selling more processed and packaged food. Corn by-products in all their forms seem to be the primary ingredient in nearly everything, now. I don't want to be the angry old man yelling at kids to get off his lawn, and I see that in many ways we have superior options today, than when I was a kid. As a vegetarian of over 20 years, my food options have widened in the intervening years. But, I also don't really like what mainstream food has become, or rather, what Big Ag has turned mainstream food into (as it wasn't an accident, it was a massive campaign of misinformation and regulatory capture).
  • deleted 13y ago
    [deleted]
  • 13y ago
• adamnemecek 13y ago
  For anyone interested, you can buy some Japanese Kit Kat on Amazon. E.g. http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00FKQ6X46/ http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00FKQ6X46/ or http://www.amazon.com/Japanese-Kit-Kat-Maccha-Green/dp/B007OVX77G http://www.amazon.com/Japanese-Kit-Kat-Maccha-Green/dp/B007O...
  • goochtek 13y ago
    I'll add to this post by saying that I live in Japan so, if you can't find the flavour you want, I am happy to buy it and send it to anyone. Obviously, I'd expect the person to cover the cost. I imagine it would be same/cheaper than buying on Amazon though. Amazon Japan Kit Kat search: http://www.amazon.co.jp/s/ref=nb_sb_noss_1?__mk_ja_JP=%E3%82%AB%E3%82%BF%E3%82%AB%E3%83%8A&url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=%E3%82%AD%E3%83%83%E3%83%88%E3%82%AB%E3%83%83%E3%83%88&rh=i%3Aaps%2Ck%3A%E3%82%AD%E3%83%83%E3%83%88%E3%82%AB%E3%83%83%E3%83%88 http://www.amazon.co.jp/s/ref=nb_sb_noss_1?__mk_ja_JP=%E3%82...
    • lovemenot 13y ago
      I work with some Nestle folks in Japan. One of them told me that they have 200 kitkat varieties nationwide. The idea is to align to local taste and pride in the "meibutsu" of each region. (e.g. pickled plum in Nagasaki). Nobody else does this, to my knowledge. The kit-kats are imported though as there is no local production. This marketing has been successful. KitKat is the #1 chocolate bar in Japan. Anecdotally, I was told that many consumers believe Nestle is a Japanese company.
      • scardine 13y ago
        From the accent I guess Japanese language don't has the L phoneme, so any brand with an L in the name would look foreign.
        • thaumasiotes 13y ago
          Japanese has just the one liquid phoneme; in terms of english they don't distinguish L from R. It's traditionally romanized with an 'r', but it can be pronounced as an L. All that seems a little beside the point, though; they have their own (terrible) writing system. I'd kind of expect any brand using roman letters to look foreign.
• jff 13y ago
  I just had green tea kit-kats from Japan, brought back by a coworker who is stationed over there. They were AWESOME.
  • ojii 13y ago
    We have Kit Kat in any flavor you can imagine over here and recently the worlds first Kit Kat store opened in Ikebukuro, Tokyo. Haven't been there yet, but will definitely check it out.
    • kalleboo 13y ago
      I got the Chili Kit Kat at the Ikebukuro store - it's really great and I want more.
• nevster 13y ago
  For many of us here in Australia and the UK, Hershey's tastes disgusting. Particularly the vomitey after-taste. http://nitecloak.wordpress.com/2009/01/20/hersheys-classic-milk-chocolate-tastes-like-vomit/ http://nitecloak.wordpress.com/2009/01/20/hersheys-classic-m...
  • maxmcd 13y ago
    Yeah. I grew up in Belgium and moved back to the US when I was still young. It's always been difficulty for me to take the chocolate here seriously.
    • elliottcarlson 13y ago
      As someone who also grew up in Belgium and now lives in New York, I completely agree. I brought back as much as I could when I went back to visit a few months ago - and it was still not nearly enough.
      • maxmcd 13y ago
        I live in nyc as well. Neuhaus isn't bad. They import directly, have locations in GC and a few other places. $30 for a pretty large box. Cheaper than airfare. :)
        • elliottcarlson 13y ago
          There's also a Leonidas up at Madison & 52nd - don't remember the prices there but definitely on the higher side. And well, we both know what Godiva really is...
          • maxmcd 13y ago
            Hah, seriously, repackaged Hershey's. Interesting about Leonidas, I'll have to check that out.
  • nopassrecover 13y ago
• tjpd 13y ago
  The differences in the taste of chocolate between the US and Europe/the rest of the world all stem back to the late 1800's & early 1900's. This is when the great modern confectioners got their start as (mostly puritanical) family firms. Daniel Peter invented solid milk chocolate in 1875 in Switzerland. John Cadbury followed suit in England with his first milk chocolate bar in 1897. Milton S. Hershey in the US built his first chocolate manufacturing plant in 1903. Franklin Clarence Mars founded Mars in Washington in 1911 only to fail & restart in Minnesota in 1920. Prior to David Peter's invention of solid milk chocolate in 1875 chocolate was known as a drink. One of the challenges of making the, now familiar, milk chocolate bar was reducing the water content of the milk to make it easier to emulsify and set the chocolate. This had to be done in a way that kept the creaminess and didn't burn or scorch the milk and that wouldn't spoil. The Swiss got there first it. Cadbury figured it out (or just copied the Swiss). Hershey struggled. He had a chocolate manufacturing plant that was closely guarded not to avoid someone stealing his chocolate recipe but to avoid anyone discovering he didn't have one. One day in 1904 he cracked it & depending on who you believe, either by perseverance or by parsimony. Hershey's advocates will tell you that late one night, after many failed attempts he & his colleague John Shmalbach discovered just the right slow evaporation of non-fat milk that produced a creamy, faintly bitter chocolate. Hershey's detractors will tell you how a tight-fisted Milton Hershey did not want to waste a large delivery of milk powder that had soured and instead used it & found it sold surprisingly well. Either way that's when Hershey's distinctive "sour" flavour was introduced. Then the Great War happened. Supply problems & rationing hugely restricted Cadbury & the other European manufacturers. Hershey, despite producing what many thought was a worse product had fewer supply issues and, without European competitors, a US market largely to himself. By the time Europe has finally picked itself up after the Second World War the American palate and taste for chocolate has long since been fixed. TLDR: Americans have terrible chocolate because in 1914 a Moravian took a wrong turn and got an Austrian shot by a Bosnian p.s. I love chocolate. I can't stand Hersheys.
  • eru 13y ago
    Interesting. What about proper bitter chocolate that doesn't contain any milk?
  • ghayes 13y ago
• agent86 13y ago
  The story in the article is actually from 2002. The irony here is that the Kit Kat has gotten better than the rest of Hershey's lineup through attrition since that time. In 2008 Hershey started taking the cocoa butter out of many of their chocolates[1], noticeably reducing their quality for many people. Because of the terms of the licensing agreement with Nestle, Hershey was not able to do this with the Kit Kat, maintaining its quality. [1] http://www.today.com/id/26788143#.UwbfqUJdUTE http://www.today.com/id/26788143#.UwbfqUJdUTE
• vsviridov 13y ago
  God damn is that page annoying to read... Put more dumb links in it, why don'tcha? Make every freakin' word a link!
  • Kiro 13y ago
    Uhm, it's Everything2.
    • adamtulinius 13y ago
      You can't expect everybody to know yet-another-silly website. I, too, found it almost unreadablee due to all the links. Silly.
      • kalleboo 13y ago
        Everything2 has more history than yet-another-silly website. It predates Wikipedia and was in ways a prototype for encyclopedic wikis but with a far freer style.
        • huxley 13y ago
          And intended to be a real world "Hitch-Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy"
          • kalleboo 13y ago
            There's also h2g2.com which is similar
            • huxley 13y ago
              Very much so, with some philosophical differences http://everything2.com/title/The+difference+between+Everything2+and+H2G2 http://everything2.com/title/The+difference+between+Everythi...
  • kimjotki2 13y ago
• shekhar101 13y ago
  Ah! The first world problems!
• kayoone 13y ago
  Only partially related, but Nestle is a pretty nasty company and should be avoided [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nestl%C3%A9#Controversy_and_criticism http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nestl%C3%A9#Controversy_and_cri...
• jmnicolas 13y ago
  At the risk of being down-voted to oblivion, does this really have its place on HN ?
  • captainmuon 13y ago
    It has "Kit Kat" in it, so people might think it's about Android. And it has conspiracy in it, which sounds like N S A. Predictably, it gets upvoted ;-)
  • DanBC 13y ago
    It stimulates curiosity - why do objectively worse products do better in some markets? That seems relevant to HN.
• erbdex 13y ago
  Really HN!? :( Trending Kit Kats now?
• deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]
• rtpg 13y ago
  I remember going back to the US after a few years abroad and realising how low-quality most products felt. Sure, in a dollar store that seems normal, but even in "normal" grocers and the like everything felt like a low-quality rip-off to their european counterparts (even though they're usually the same brand!) I feel like there's probably a good opportunity to make a business selling just slightly higher-quality products.
  • dkasper 13y ago
    That is basically what Trader Joe's does.
    • mcv 13y ago
      Wasn't Trader Joe's the American branch of a notoriously cheap and low quality German supermarket? Is its US reputation really one of more expensive higher quality products?
      • DougBTX 13y ago
        Wikipedia says that it was founded by an American, Joe Coulombe, and then sold to trust which also owns a notoriously cheap and low quality German supermarket chain in 1979. Perhaps Trader Joe's started expanding more quickly after being sold.
        • terranstyler 13y ago
          Aldi is by no means low quality! However, I agree it isn't premium either...
          • abrugsch 13y ago
            Aldi may not be low quality in Germany (It's just a.n.other supermarket there), but in the UK, it is definitely percieved as such. A small percentage of the stock is german delicacies, and a further small percentage are standard brand name items, however the vast majority is off-brand look-alike items, usually dangerously close to a trademark infringement. Combined with very low prices gives it something of stigma with shopping brand snobs.
• archagon 13y ago
  Every time the topic of American chocolate comes up, people talk about how disguisting it is compared to European chocolate. Have you tasted anything other than Hershey's? We have excellent chocolate, even at our biggest grocery stores! (Walgreens, for instance, stocks Ghirardelli and Godiva.) And if you want something even better, every big city is bound to have a handful of chocolatiers.
  • barrkel 13y ago
    Godiva chocolates are also dreadful and unsubtle. I tried a little bit to find edible chocolate when I was considering moving to the US. And when I want a simple chocolate bar, I'm not interested in a bitter high cocoa dark chocolate. See, it's a quality of life thing. I don't want to have to go to specialty stores to get a treat that doesn't taste like vomit at 3pm on a Thursday afternoon. I don't want to have to make my own ice cream to get a nice chocolatey flavour. I don't want to have to bake my own biscuits to get edible triple chocolate chip cookies. Etc. You get the idea.
    • archagon 13y ago
      I humbly disagree, having tasted European chocolate. Godiva is pretty good, and certainly orders of magnitude better than Hershey's. Divine chocolate (Whole Foods) and Ritter Sport milk chocolate are even better. I mean, really, take your pick. There's so much variety. (EDIT: Though, in retrospect, I guess they aren't made here. But I still say that Ghirardelli and Godiva are pretty good, even if they're not the best chocolate I've ever had.)
      • mcv 13y ago
        There's also plenty of variety in European chocolate. Personally I consider Kitkat among the lowest quality. Personally I prefer stuff like Verkade (no idea how big they are abroad, but they're the giant in Netherland), or Tony Chocolonely's (small but growing fast, pioneered slavery-free chocolate).
  • jwdunne 13y ago
    I think the issue probably comes from tourists purchasing their favourite snack bars, such as a KitKat or Mars, age being unpleasantly surprised. Here in the UK, I love these chocolate bars - definitely nothing like candle wax? This extends to more than just chocolate though. The Big Mac using mechanically recovered beef would be a big unpleasant surprise (which doesn't happen here except for the nuggets). Mix that in with cultural differences, you have plenty of horrors (I've heard egg mayo is blended in US rather than mashed together so it's chunky, which has horrified many a Brit). However, anywhere worth holidaying has great food to eat do I don't think it's fair to say its 100% bad. In my opinion, the bread in Spain sucks (unless fresh) yet I've eaten at many great restaurants and bought great snacks.
• bitops 13y ago
  It's true that "consumer chocolate" in America is pretty bad, i.e. anything made by Hershey's. Too much sugar and not enough cocoa. Good stuff should be above 57% cocoa. If it's less than that, buy high-quality milk chocolate. That said, other commenters on this thread are correct that it's not too hard to find good chocolate if you just know what to shop for. My all time favorite is Valrhona. It's by far the best chocolate of them all. Obviously that's personal preference. We're lucky that we have at least two awesome local brands in the Bay Area. Recchiuti chocolate is awesome, the only location I know of is in the ferry building. Tcho chocolate is the other one and I've been told that they do some interesting stuff with analytics to create the ultimate chocolately goodness. I care little for Ghirardelli. I went to Ghirardelli Square as a kid and it was fun, but it's just not my thing now.
  • agilebyte 13y ago
    I don't know about the milk chocolate suggestion. The taste comes from all the fat that comes from the milk and you have maybe 20% cocoa. You may just as well have a smaller piece of a dark chocolate with a glass of milk.
    • sanoli 13y ago
      I actually prefer milk chocolate over dark chocolate. And yes, I've had all the good, high percentage cocoa, chocolates from Switzerland, Belgium etc. I like the sweeter, milder taste, and and tired of some of my friends who keep annoying me with this "you're not eating real chocolate". They've turned into chocolate snobs.
  • praptak 13y ago
    > Good stuff should be above 57% cocoa. Replacing cocoa butter with cheaper fats is also a good way to turn chocolate into a crappy chocolate-like product.
    • jules 13y ago
      Exactly, the amount of cocoa butter is just as important if not more important than the amount of cocoa. Unfortunately the amount of cocoa butter is rarely found on the package.
• blueskin_ 13y ago
  I've had Hershey's chocolate before. It's not that nice.
• Namrog84 13y ago
  Am I the only one who noticed the k c difference? Hn poster changed the K to a c. Though the correct spelling. I felt like the articles authors use of kkk was a bit odd. Perhaps even intentional? Maybe subtly inappropriate? Well it could just be me :/
• nnq 13y ago
  Am I the only European who actually likes Hershey's?! I can't say it's better than Swiss or than Cadbury chocolate, but it's not worse either! It's just a different experience! ...I like the "rugged" and slightly "sour-ish" taste of Hershey's and that fact that it actually fills your mouth with a strong flavor. And that it doesn't just melt instantly in your mouth, but you can actually chew it. And that it doesn't feel like "50% sugar": to me all European chocolates are just too fucking sweet, except for the dark chocolates. But I like milk chocolate that is not so fucking sweet and doesn't just fucking melts in your mouth before you even had the chance to taste it, and the extremely subtle yogurt-ish flavor of the Hershey added on top just makes it perfect to me. Cadbury too has some of these attributes but the Swiss brands taste just wrong to me. Even if it was a historical accident, to me Europe just misunderstood chocolate (except for the dark high cocoa chocolates that they did get right), and I really hate it that Hershey's is so hard to find in Europe.
  • swah 13y ago
    I used to love Hershey's, but then in a trip to Uruguay ("free shops" for brazilians) I found the (until then) mythical Lindt. I have no idea about its market share in US though.
    • nnq 13y ago
      If you like Lindt you'll also like other Swiss chocolates, so go ahead and try them :)
      • swah 13y ago
        The other ones are even harder to find, I suppose.
    • pionar 13y ago
      Why mutual exclusivity? I like Lindt chocolate as well (on occasion, I find it a little overbearing on the sweetness), but I also love just a good, plain Hershey bar. You can love more than one thing at a time for different reasons.
• jackgavigan 13y ago
  Screw the Kit Kat Konspiracy. I want to know what happened to Coconut M&Ms!
  • shiftpgdn 13y ago
    You can still get them here in Texas.
• jfc 13y ago
  Posts like this make me wish there was a "Best of" category/indicator on HN. If I'd logged in later today, I might have missed it!
  • GFischer 13y ago
    Are you aware of https://news.ycombinator.com/best https://news.ycombinator.com/best and the other options like https://news.ycombinator.com/bestcomments https://news.ycombinator.com/bestcomments This article sits at number 66 on the list (at least for me), but it's there :)
    • jfc 13y ago
      No, I didn't know about these. Thanks for the links :)
• retube 13y ago
  There are deliberate differences in chocolate composition for chocolate bars in different parts of the world for climate reasons. Take a European chocolate bar to India in the summer: it will be a gooey mess (as I discovered for myself). So the "same" bar manufactured for Indian markets (for example) has a higher melting temperature than those made for European markets. This obviously introduces taste and consistency differences.
• endemic 13y ago
  Surprised no one has mentioned the "Visible Mars Bar" project yet: http://totl.net/VisibleMars/ http://totl.net/VisibleMars/ Basically UK vs. US Mars/Milky Way bars.