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When I lived in the UK and France I learned what chocolate really tastes like.

Unless we are talking small shop "gourmet" chocolate, your typical USA candy bar is pretty rancid.
 
As long as we're necro-posting...

I can get Lindt chocolate bars (the 70% & 90%) in my local Wal-mart and Target stores. The prices are much lower than any other stores around me.
Or if you're lucky enough to live near a Lindt store, you can get good prices there as well.

When I lived in the UK and France I learned what chocolate really tastes like.

Unless we are talking small shop "gourmet" chocolate, your typical USA candy bar is pretty rancid.
The largest chocolate company in the US that has good chocolate is Ghirardelli. I will agree that a lot of "US" chocolate is bad. I'm lucky that Trader Joe's has decent Belgium chocolate under their label so it's at a very good price.
 
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When I lived in the UK and France I learned what chocolate really tastes like.

Fortunately, I already knew what chocolate tasted like before I went to Paris. Not that that stopped me from having a few hundred euros worth of chocolates (and also macarons) in my carry-on bag on the way home.

It also doesn't stop me from eating M&Ms.
 
I have a commoner's taste buds. :p I love milk chocolate including Hershey's kisses, M&Ms (U.S. version) and almond chocolate bars. I like dark chocolate but not as much as milk chocolate and the rich Belgian style chocolates do nothing for me, too rich/sweet. I've never had European version M&Ms. How different are they?
 
I have no idea what those are, but I'm gonna say that you're 100% completely and totally wrong.

Cuz nothing is better than Kit Kats. NOTHING! :mad:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tim_Tam

Packet_of_Original_Tim_Tams.JPG

5923956115_2078599c84.jpg


Since Pepperidge Farms owns the name in the US, they are marketed here as simply "Arnott's". Head to your local Cost Plus World Market, and pick up a package. You'll be in for a treat.

After that, a Timtam slammer is in order! :)

And this is Australian chocolate.

BL.
 
Since Pepperidge Farms owns the name in the US, they are marketed here as simply "Arnott's". Head to your local Cost Plus World Market, and pick up a package. You'll be in for a treat.

After that, a Timtam slammer is in order! :)

And this is Australian chocolate.

BL.

Alright. Next time I'm near the mall, I'll swing by Cost Plus and pick up a pack. Since you're claiming they're better than Kit Kats (which is a pretty bold claim, by the way), I won't want to pass them up.
 
Alright. Next time I'm near the mall, I'll swing by Cost Plus and pick up a pack. Since you're claiming they're better than Kit Kats (which is a pretty bold claim, by the way), I won't want to pass them up.

I don't think you'll be disappointed. And this is coming from someone who baked with Hershey's, but stated numerous times that Oreos were the best (I could eat a whole package with milk in a single sit). Having just 2 of these had me swearing off Oreos for YEARS (broke down and bought some to make shakes with).

But I haven't found a better biscuit/cookie. Coffee Crisps (Canada) and Ferrero Rocher come close, but these are the best.

EDIT: I can't stress this enough. Do NOT get the Pepperidge Farm version! they are horrible. That's why I stated Cost Plus; Target does sell the Pepperidge Farm brand, and no-one's buying it.

Arnotts @ Cost Plus. Only way to go.

BL.
 
I prefer European chocolate. It seems American chocolate has ingredients to keep the products life span longer and keep it from being messy. You'll be amazed to see American manufacturers such as Kraft running delicious foreign chocolates like Milka. Companies craft their product around what is marketable.
 
A Hershey bar is lucky to contain 10% cocoa, if that. They also take out almost all of the cocoa butter and replace it with Polyglycerol Polyricinoleate, a cheaper alternative filler made from castor beans. Pretty much all the big, cheap American chocolate makers do the same thing - the result is an end product that tastes more like wax (or vomit) than chocolate.

What's even worse is that Hershey's has bought out artisinal chocolate-makers like Scharffenberger and Joseph Schmidt and ruined their products. Thankfully there are plenty of other smaller chocolatiers they haven't bought / ruined yet, and the numerous European imports are still an option.

Dredging up this old thread with some comments from a total chocolate and pastry nerd. Lots of misconceptions in this thread.

1. Hershey's tastes that way because it's supposed to taste that way, not because someone screwed up. Hershey's smells slightly like vomit / sour milk because it contains elevated levels of butyric acid. This is due to Hershey's use of the "Hershey Process", which it has used since the turn of the century. The Hershey Process (which is a trade secret) was designed to produce chocolate more cheaply back when raw cacao was extremely expensive and a chocolate bar was a luxury good. This is no longer the case. but because of the long history of the Hershey Bar and Kisses being sold in the US, Americans are used to this flavor in Hershey's chocolate and the company has stuck with the process. The rest of the world is not used to the taste and considers it a sign of poor manufacturing. What people unfamiliar with Hershey's chocolate might consider to be a fault or "mistake" in making the chocolate is actually a deliberately introduced flavor. This IN NO WAY excuses Hershey for the (IMO) awful taste of a standard Hershey bar. I think Hershey's should abandon the Hershey's Process. It no longer makes sense and once you notice it, it's terrible. PWe should all persuade Hershey to ditch the outdated process.

2. A standard Hershey's bar contains far more cocao than many popular European chocolate bars. The EU minimum percentage is only 1% while a Hershey's bar contains about 11% cacao solids. The UK is (in)famous for have a pretty lax definition of "chocolate", something that sparked a trade war about 15 years ago. In fact, many bars that are sold as "chocolate" in the UK could not legally be sold in the US as "chocolate" because the cacao content is too low or because the manufacturing process introduces non-cacao fat. An example of this is Cadbury Dairy Milk which is based on (much cheaper) palm oil and thus is not chocolate in a purist sense. Because of this, Dairy Milk is contract manufactured in the US without the palm oil for sale in the US. So from a purist sense, a Hershey's Bar is more "real chocolate" than the vaunted Dairy Milk. So there, snotty Brits.

3. Hershey owns several high end brands that produce boutique world class chocolate (Dagoba, Scharffen-Berger etc). Also, many products produced by Hershey's don't follow the Hershey Process and thus exclude the "sour" taste (example: "Pot of Gold"). The company knows how to make unbelievably good chocolate.

Thank you, both, for such extraordinarily interesting and very informative posts. An absolute pleasure to read.

In any case, I have never liked Hershey chocolate, (and don't much care for the product known as 'milk chocolate' either which is very popular in the UK, such as, indeed, the very well known and extremely popular 'Dairy Milk' made by Cadbury's) but is is really quite fascinating to have an explanation for exactly why the product is made in the way it is.

While I don't generally eat that much chocolate (except in winter), my own preference is for dark chocolate, which contains around 70% cocao; an excellent companion with a coffee made with a French press, or indeed, an espresso. In any case, in Europe, it is not all that difficult to find chocolate which meets this standard.
 
Kind of funny to see this old topic come back.

Some have raised a point that I had actually forgotten about: Hershey's chocolate always tasted different from regular old milk chocolate. When I was a kid growing up in the 70s / early 80s, I remember the difference quite distinctly. It always tasted a little waxy compared to other chocolate bars, but that could be down to the Hershey Process that Hiro11 mentioned.

Now, most American mass-market chocolate tastes like waxy putty to me. I haven't had a Cadbury bar in ages, either. When I do buy chocolate bars, I tend to gravitate toward the Swiss (Lindt), German (Ritter Sport), and artisanal American brands (Mast Brothers is a current favorite). My wife likes Chocolove and it's pretty easy to find in most stores around here, so I buy those for her fairly regularly.
 
Hershey chocolate bars taste gritty to me. The straight bars or the ones with almonds. Peanut butter cups and kit kats aren't bad. However, Hersey over in the UK, from what I can tell, is vastly different to me.
 
Dredging up this old thread with some comments from a total chocolate and pastry nerd. Lots of misconceptions in this thread.

1. Hershey's tastes that way because it's supposed to taste that way, not because someone screwed up. Hershey's smells slightly like vomit / sour milk because it contains elevated levels of butyric acid. This is due to Hershey's use of the "Hershey Process", which it has used since the turn of the century. The Hershey Process (which is a trade secret) was designed to produce chocolate more cheaply back when raw cacao was extremely expensive and a chocolate bar was a luxury good. This is no longer the case. but because of the long history of the Hershey Bar and Kisses being sold in the US, Americans are used to this flavor in Hershey's chocolate and the company has stuck with the process. The rest of the world is not used to the taste and considers it a sign of poor manufacturing. What people unfamiliar with Hershey's chocolate might consider to be a fault or "mistake" in making the chocolate is actually a deliberately introduced flavor. This IN NO WAY excuses Hershey for the (IMO) awful taste of a standard Hershey bar. I think Hershey's should abandon the Hershey's Process. It no longer makes sense and once you notice it, it's terrible. PWe should all persuade Hershey to ditch the outdated process.

2. A standard Hershey's bar contains far more cocao than many popular European chocolate bars. The EU minimum percentage is only 1% while a Hershey's bar contains about 11% cacao solids. The UK is (in)famous for have a pretty lax definition of "chocolate", something that sparked a trade war about 15 years ago. In fact, many bars that are sold as "chocolate" in the UK could not legally be sold in the US as "chocolate" because the cacao content is too low or because the manufacturing process introduces non-cacao fat. An example of this is Cadbury Dairy Milk which is based on (much cheaper) palm oil and thus is not chocolate in a purist sense. Because of this, Dairy Milk is contract manufactured in the US without the palm oil for sale in the US. So from a purist sense, a Hershey's Bar is more "real chocolate" than the vaunted Dairy Milk. So there, snotty Brits.

3. Hershey owns several high end brands that produce boutique world class chocolate (Dagoba, Scharffen-Berger etc). Also, many products produced by Hershey's don't follow the Hershey Process and thus exclude the "sour" taste (example: "Pot of Gold"). The company knows how to make unbelievably good chocolate.

Thanks for this very informative post! However I continue to disagree that Hershey chocolates taste bad. :p
 
When I went to the US I didn't really like the selection of chocolates, however I did try Reeces cups which are amazing and I still have them when I can. After tasting a selection of products I didn't really care for them meanwhile Cadburys and Galaxy have yet to let me down. Try them if you haven't!

Galaxy Caramel
Cadburys Dairy Milk
 
Sure there are much better chocolates than Hershey's but the fact is, some things are good even if they're bad. See chocolate, blow jobs. :D
 
When I went to the US I didn't really like the selection of chocolates, however I did try Reeces cups which are amazing and I still have them when I can. After tasting a selection of products I didn't really care for them meanwhile Cadburys and Galaxy have yet to let me down. Try them if you haven't!

Galaxy Caramel
Cadburys Dairy Milk

Reeces= superb.

I also love Cabury filled eggs, and caramel filled chocolate bars, so there is hope for me in the chocolate connoisseur department. ;)
 
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