[bitops]

It's true that "consumer chocolate" in America is pretty bad, i.e. anything made by Hershey's. Too much sugar and not enough cocoa.

Good stuff should be above 57% cocoa. If it's less than that, buy high-quality milk chocolate.

That said, other commenters on this thread are correct that it's not too hard to find good chocolate if you just know what to shop for.

My all time favorite is Valrhona. It's by far the best chocolate of them all. Obviously that's personal preference.

We're lucky that we have at least two awesome local brands in the Bay Area. Recchiuti chocolate is awesome, the only location I know of is in the ferry building. Tcho chocolate is the other one and I've been told that they do some interesting stuff with analytics to create the ultimate chocolately goodness.

I care little for Ghirardelli. I went to Ghirardelli Square as a kid and it was fun, but it's just not my thing now.

[kjjw]

I'm from the UK. Our chocolate has taken a beating lately, and in fact there was a call from some part of the EU establishment to ban UK chocolate manufacturers from calling their chocolate 'chocolate'. Instead they would have to call it 'hydrogenated something or other'. It didn't happen.

That said, I once tried a Hershey's chocolate bar on a work trip to the US. I was almost physically sick from the taste. It is truely, truely awful.

[agilebyte]

I don't know about the milk chocolate suggestion. The taste comes from all the fat that comes from the milk and you have maybe 20% cocoa. You may just as well have a smaller piece of a dark chocolate with a glass of milk.

[sanoli]

I actually prefer milk chocolate over dark chocolate. And yes, I've had all the good, high percentage cocoa, chocolates from Switzerland, Belgium etc. I like the sweeter, milder taste, and and tired of some of my friends who keep annoying me with this "you're not eating real chocolate". They've turned into chocolate snobs.

[praptak]

> Good stuff should be above 57% cocoa.

Replacing cocoa butter with cheaper fats is also a good way to turn chocolate into a crappy chocolate-like product.

[jules]

Exactly, the amount of cocoa butter is just as important if not more important than the amount of cocoa. Unfortunately the amount of cocoa butter is rarely found on the package.