Interesting. I always wondered why I hated Hershey's. It's not just the taste, but also the horrible mouthfeel.
I recently bought a couple 5lb bags of Ghirardelli(lower lead+cadmium, maybe) chips as a cheaper way of satisfying my chocolate cravings(also handy because I realized I eat over a lb/month). I noticed the mouthfeel is just lacking vs other Ghirardelli products. I've tried retempering them and adding more cocoa butter, but they just seem... a little less smooth. I don't know, maybe they weren't conched as much?
My favorite is the Trader Joe's Fair Trade Organic 72 % Cacao Belgian Dark Chocolate Bar which, for a cheap, readily available in the US, relatively dark chocolate is amazingly smooth with a wonderful taste and mouthfeel.
Aha! Vindication for my belief that chocolate from the U.S.A. literally tastes rancid! Now I know why it tastes like off milk, but not why you guys like it :/
It's strange but I actually like Hershey's chocolate, even though I've had much better quality chocolates. A Hershey bar seems like something you grab a bite of whenever, but better chocolate feels like too good/rich for that.
Not so! There's a lot of snobbery with things like chocolate because adults want to distinguish themselves whilst eating what's considered a "childish" sweet, and chocolate makers aren't exactly going to correct them when they're willing to pay twice the price for that privilege.
There's plenty of good cheap chocolate out there (at least here in Europe). You can even get decent stuff at the supermarket; Tony's isn't bad.
You can usually get expensive chocolate for pretty cheap right after a holiday is over from supermarkets or convenience stores (CVS/Walgreens). I'll buy enough to last until the next big holiday (Xmas, Valentine's, Easter, Halloween).
> Can't stand the vomit like undernotes in US choc
As the article notes, the butyric taste is a hallmark of Hershey’s and its ilk. America makes some great chocolate, from Ghirardelli to Jacques Torres.
(We have a segmentation problem in that our discerning—read: premium paying—adults tend towards dark chocolate, leaving milk to be marketed to children and adults who eat like them. But again, notable exceptions.)
Sugar Free Dark Almonds from Sees[1] has to be one of my favorite chocolate products of all time. Friends and family always gobble them up at my place so I sometimes buy them as little gifts. I normally abhor anything “sugar free” because substitutes like aspartame taste absolutely disgusting to me, but this uses maltitol, which is a sugar alcohol that achieves a more subtle sweetness with none of the gross fake sugar taste, and since I like my chocolate on the less sweet side, it strikes a perfect balance for me. Maltitol is a mild laxative, but I’m pretty sure you would have to eat multiple boxes to feel anything.
One of my favorite Seattle moments was having gotten some Frans chocolate from the factory in Georgetown to bring home from traveling, and some as a gift for my cousin I was staying with, watching two folks at the table next to me at a business dinner exchange little bags of Frans chocolates as a greeting.
> if your tastes aren't like my tastes, you eat like a child
Read it again. I like milk chocolate. But in America, the target market for milk chocolate is kids. So the sugar content is amped and the flavour profile is simplified.
Also, there is nothing wrong with eating like a child. I like Sour Patch Kids and gummy bears. But it is eating like a kid.
My kid had her first vomiting episode a month ago.
This morning she ate a large Hershey kiss and went to wash her hands and came back proclaiming "my hands smell like throw up" and having just read about this a few months ago I proudly educated the family on why emesis and hershey smell similar.
Interesting that the reasons both US and UK chocolate are weird are largely down to two separate pre-refrigeration practices which are now unnecessary.
I can’t stand Cadbury and can only tolerate Hershey’s because I grew up with it. Now ALDI has huge cheap chocolate bars of European chocolate that I like.
The hate for Cadbury’s but also the idea you would love Hershey on the other hand. I can understand not thinking Cadbury’s is the best chocolate available but hating it just seems crazy, it’s such a non offensive product. If you like chocolate then Cadbury’s should be perfectly palatable to you. Hershey’s is just absolute garbage. If you like Hershey’s but don’t like Cadbury’s I would go as far as to say you simply don’t like chocolate.
There are a similar ilk of frustrating people who will claim Starbucks is disgusting and undrinkable when it’s just perfectly regular coffee and better than many options.
Brown saved British steel but let the yanks buy Cadbury’s… sigh.
I get that others have preferences but I will never understand preferring Hershey’s. It’s almost like a lesser version of the coriander thing. It just contains a flavour that my mind body signals to me “do not consume”.
I think animus about Starbucks can arise from sources extrinsic to the coffee but from a coffee consumption perspective there are many good coffees. I think in a place with a strong coffee culture drinking Starbucks is essentially voting for its death.
I think Starbucks is disgusting and undrinkable. I've been a coffee enthusiast for four decades now so it's not an uninformed opinion.
Although, I agree re: Cadbury vs Hershey. I'm not much of a Cadbury fan, but imo it's orders of magnitude better than Hershey.
Anyone else think Lindt is pretty tasty for an inexpensive milk chocolate bar? I never liked Hersheys and agree about the weird almost vomit note in the flavor. I used to like Cadbury but it changed.
I’ve come to the opinion that chocolate as a food is just much harder to make good than chocolate as a flavor or additive.
Fancy chocolates are ok but not really satisfying like how you remember it as a kid. But chocolate flavored stuff and melted chocolate is still pretty solid generically.
If you don’t want “sophisticated and subtle” chocolate, I would recommend Tony’s (slave free) chocolate. This gets closest to what I actually want in a chocolate bar.
The article was interesting, too bad it did not deep dive a bit into Asian chocolate. So far I've been mostly disappointed when buying chocolate in China and Vietnam (not much taste, not sugary enough for my taste) but I quite liked some of the bars sold in Thailand
TFA is about milk chocolate; but British dark chocolate is also distinctive. I think there's probably just a lot more sugar in it than in Belgian or Swiss brands.
It's been decades since I tasted US chocolate; so, no comment on that.
I too was surprised, I was really surprised by this statement and would love to see more data on it:
> while adding vegetable fats to chocolate is something that is a unique practice among British manufacturers, these fats are tasteless, so they're unlikely to be contributing.
That interested me, as well. Where I live, Cadbury chocolate was the go-to option for chocolate. I remember the switch to them using palm oil - I hated it. Stopped buying their product after that.
You switched because of the change in taste? Texture? Environmental or philosophical concerns? Health concerns (does palm have more saturated fat than cocoa?)
I remember reading that Ferrero tried to switch away from palm oil but never managed to recreate the taste and texture and all tests showed that people did not like the alternatives, so Ferrero kept it and invested in ethical palm instead.
Same for tomatoes British grown tomatoes have no taste compared to southern Europe equivalent. Among an endless list of other produces. Taste standards are much lower in the UK than anywhere else in Europe so not surprising
I think you’ve been rather blunt, and the fact is that the UK does have some exceptional local produce, but there is a kernel of truth: people in the UK accept particularly low standards from their supermarkets compared to the wealth that exists in the country. And they have done so for a very long time.
But you can get great strawberries in summer. Great seafood in Scotland. Many a hearty meal is to be had if you stick to local food.
Tomatoes are native to Mexico and developed in Spain and Italy. If you want them in the UK the trade offs are harsh.
But this is not just UK. Southern Europe is exception. While you can get tasty tomatoes in many countries on the continent - those sold in supermarket are very sad ones.
This narrative about American chocolate tasting like vomit is just marketing from Cadbury. Sadly I only know this from speaking to a food scientist in person and don't recall the details, but it's tiring to see this go around on Reddit, er I mean HN, every few years.
Hershey's does not taste like vomit. Y'all are imagining it after being told by Cadbury that it does.
I'm sorry, but I have to respectfully disagree with you. Some years ago a work colleague went on holiday to America (I'm English) and brought back some Hershey chocolate. At that point I had never heard about American chocolate tasting like vomit, but when I tried it that's what I immediately thought of. I then looked online and found out the reason it tasted like that. Since I'd never heard anything bad about American chocolate at that point it can't be blamed on propaganda.
I’ve never seen the marketing you speak of from Cadbury and immigrated to the US over 20 years ago. I still can’t stand Hersheys. What horrible chocolate. The only people that like it grew up on it and didn’t know any better, so I understand. I truly hope American palates can rescued from this travesty.
I recently bought a couple 5lb bags of Ghirardelli(lower lead+cadmium, maybe) chips as a cheaper way of satisfying my chocolate cravings(also handy because I realized I eat over a lb/month). I noticed the mouthfeel is just lacking vs other Ghirardelli products. I've tried retempering them and adding more cocoa butter, but they just seem... a little less smooth. I don't know, maybe they weren't conched as much?
My favorite is the Trader Joe's Fair Trade Organic 72 % Cacao Belgian Dark Chocolate Bar which, for a cheap, readily available in the US, relatively dark chocolate is amazingly smooth with a wonderful taste and mouthfeel.