A quest far greater than the search for the holy grail, the search for the perfect chocolate has been a concern of mine for a very long time now.
If you’re chocolate fans, you all know by now that there are not only different types of filling, but also different percentages of cocoa in every chocolate bar.
Now most often, chocolate comes at about 36% cocoa, which means everything else is milk and sugar. The cheaper a chocolate bar is, the more sugar it contains, because it is the cheapest ingredient in chocolate. Also, if a chocolate bar has a higher percentage of cocoa, it will be more expensive.
The fact is that most people enjoy simple, milky sweet chocolate, and don’t look far beyond a few fillings and a couple of crisps. However, a real chocoholic will apreciate the more intense flavor of higher cocoa content. The most bitter chocolate i’ve seen so far, is Lindt’s 99% cocoa, which is mostly cocoa mix boiled down to almost pure cocoa. It sounds exciting, but the fact is you can only take very small bits at a time, with a glass of water or milk on hand, and even so ONLY IF you have some bitter chocolate experience. Beginners will find this sort disgusting.
On the other hand, the more you get accustomed to high quality chocolate, the more disgusted you are by sugary cheap replicas of quality products. I’ve found out, by experimenting, that the best chocolate to eat on a regular basis is somewhere around 64%, as it has a good and filling cocoa taste but isn’t either too bitter to have much of or to sweet to enjoy.
Enjoy!
