The best quality chocolate

The cocoa content of Club and Penguin bars is now so “debased” that Britain’s much-loved lunchbox biscuits can no longer legally be marketed as chocolate, said Tony Turnbull in The Times. Their downgrading to “chocolate flavour” highlights how products that look and taste like chocolate may actually contain very little of the real ingredient.

Dire harvests in the world’s key cocoa-growing regions have sent the price of cocoa beans soaring, sparking a “cocoa crisis” that is affecting the solid chocolate bar sector, too. Some manufacturers are simply downsizing their bars (so you get less chocolate for your buck) but others are “adjusting” their product, using fewer cocoa solids and more palm oil or shea oil. As a result, it’s harder to find a flavourful bar of chocolate, made with good-quality ingredients, for a reasonable price.

Milk chocolate sold in the UK must contain a minimum 20% cocoa solids (lower than the EU’s 25% minimum but higher than the 10% specified in the US). White chocolate must contain at least 25% cocoa butter (milder and creamy that cocoa solids), and dark chocolate must contain at least 35% cocoa solids, although high-quality bars can have up to 90%. In all cases, the remaining percentage is usually made up of emulsifiers, flavourings and other fillers.

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“Dark chocolate with a higher cocoa percentage typically has a richer, savoury taste,” said Which?, while bars with “lower cocoa percentage may be sweeter and more mellow”. For most people, a “70% cocoa content provides the perfect balance between sweetness and intensity”, said Tom Hunt in The Guardian.

The majority of chocolate is made from processed cocoa beans, which are then “conched” and “tempered” – technical terms for the aerating, heating and cooling steps that give good chocolate its glossy finish and distinct snap. If you’re after a higher-end, “more distinctive” product, look for “high-value bean-to-bar chocolate”, where the beans are “roasted and processed entirely in-house”.

Just like wine, which is influenced by the soil and climate in the region where the vines are grown, cocoa has a “its sense of terroir”, said Turnbull in The Times. Beans grown in Venezuela, for example, “range from nutty and creamy to dark and earthy”, whereas cocoa from Ecuador and Peru is more fruity, floral and caramelised. West African-grown amelonado beans are “earthy and bitter”, but can develop “notes of tobacco and rum” when grown in the Caribbean.

For milk chocolate, Pierre Marcolini Chocolat au Lait is the “best posh” choice. The Belgian chocolatier’s 44% milk bar “uses amelonado cocoa beans from São Tomé and Príncipe”, providing notes of “caramel and honey”. Tony’s Chocolonely Milk is the best supermarket choice. Although it only contains 32% cocoa solids, this still “gives it the edge over” Lindt Excellence (30%), and its “chunkiness” is an added bonus.

The best supermarket dark chocolate is Green & Black’s Organic 70% Cocoa bar, said The Guardian. It “starts with vanilla, then a powerful bitter cocoa flavour builds in complexity with sour notes, before finishing on a lingering sweetness”. With its “smooth and quick-melting texture”, it’s “excellent value as an entry-level organic chocolate”.