Taste test: milk and dark chocolate
In a taste test for National Chocolate Week, we pitted a dozen chocolate bars against one another. The results may surprise you…
To mark National Chocolate Week, the Lovefood office has been blindtasting and scoring chocolate bars.
Our testers munched through a dozen samples, seven dark chocolate and five milk, from manufacturers ranging from Aldi and Lidl to Lindt and Green & Blacks.
Which chocolates made the grade, and which let themselves down?
Milk chocolate
4th place: Schogetten Milk (Lidl) – 79p/100g
At a bargain price, Schogetten didn’t actually do too badly with a score of 5.5/10. But although not awful, it was unfortunately Schogettable and we probably won't be getting more - unless we're cooking.
3rd place: Green & Blacks - £2.19/100g
At almost triple the price of Schogetten, the G&B bar really didn’t do very well. It has a rather tangy finish which divided opinions; some found it pleasant but the majority described it as an offputting aftertaste. It came away from the test with a score of 6/10.
2nd place (joint): Divine - £2/100g
Divine’s milk chocolate bar is “beautifully creamy” but an “odd texture” was also commented on. Despite conflicting reports of its character, it achieved a rating of 6.5/10.
2nd place (joint): Choceur (Aldi) – 99p/100g
Aldi's budget contribution to the milk chocolate market is a cheap bar which is Fairtrade and, according to our tasters, is creamy and has a distinctive chocolate flavour, though a few picked up on ‘cheap’ overtones. Still, it’s half the price of Divine and got the same score of 6.5/10.
1st place: Cadbury’s Dairy Milk - £1/100g
Cadbury’s Dairy Milk takes the crown for our milk chocolate category. A few tasters even guessed what the bar was from the flavour and texture alone. In many ways, that’s to Cadbury’s credit – their flagship chocolate bar really is unmistakeable. “The best by far” said one person, while another commented on the creaminess – but one person did say it was too sweet and had a “weird aftertaste”. 7/10
Dark chocolate
4th place: JD Gross (Lidl) 70% - 87p/100g
The JD Gross bar was criticised by several for having “hardly any flavour” and a “bad texture.” However, it did have a couple of fans; “quite a nice smooth taste, not too heavy,” was one of the positive remarks. But it only got 5/10. Maybe this is a useful one for the stove rather than to be enjoyed on its own.
3rd place (joint): Schogetten Dark (Lidl) – 79p/100g
Schogetten’s dark chocolate bar did slightly better than its milk choc cousin, but it didn’t wow anybody. It received 6/10 for its cheap flavour and for being far too sweet for dark chocolate.
3rd place (joint): Fin Carré – 35p/100g
Fin Carré’s bar is crazily cheap, and I therefore didn’t expect it to do this well. People thought it was a perfectly acceptable bar on the whole, but too sweet overall. 6/10.
3rd place (joint): Lindt Excellence 70% - £1.89/100g
Surprisingly, Lindt’s Excellence didn’t do any better than the two cheaper bars with a score of 6/10. Pleasant, but not exceptional, its slightly creamy, soft texture was well received, but one person summed up their experience with a single “ew”. Tough crowd...
3rd place (joint): Green & Blacks Organic 70% - £2.19/100g
The final bar to share third place is just as surprising with only 6/10 for Green & Blacks Organic 70%, which some people said had a note of sourness in the final stages of flavour, which ruined the experience. It’s a very strong-tasting bar; tasters commented that they thought it might be an 80% or above.
2nd place: Divine 70% - £2/100g
Divine picks up another 6.5/10 for its dark bar. Not shabby. A couple of people said it was a little bland, while others liked the balance of bitterness and the non-overpowering flavour.
1st place Choceur dark (Aldi) – 99p/100g
Aldi deserve a round of applause – second place for their milk choc, first for dark! It’s a complex flavour which balances its bitterness with a light sweetness, without being overly sweet. A well-rounded winner with 7/10 – and even better, it’s only 99p for a 100g bar. Sounds like a good deal to us!
Do you have another favourite you’d like us to know about? Tell us about it in the Comments below.
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