Re: The Nestle Kit-Kat Chocolate is far too sweet
I disagree, hotel chocolat is definitely up there, and British to boot.
*stares patriotically into the distance while eating a 100% cocoa single plantation bar slowly.*
Google has announced that the next version of its Android operating system will be codenamed "KitKat", after the iconic chocolate-covered wafer candy bar. Photo of the KitKat mascot among the Android lawn statues The Chocolate Factory needs a break from 'Jelly Bean', it seems Previously, the leading speculation among the …
I'm afraid I'm going to have to disagree - Hotel Chocolat is over-rated. It's a massive step in the right direction for British chocolate, but is still nowhere near as good as the proper Belgian, French or Swiss stuff, for example.
It's a lot more gimicky as well, rather than purely designed to taste and to feel amazing as it melts - the 100% cocoa bars being a prime example. They're essentially taking advantage of the British public's niavety and new found enthusiasm when it come to 'proper' chocolate. Brits used to like Dairy Milk, then discovered 70% Green and Blacks is so much better - so now think more cocao must = better.
There's a sweet spot for chocolate, where you have the balance of flavours right. It's between about 65% an 80%. A lot of the 99% and 100% bars are more of a statement a than genuinely nice. (A bit like those extra lean steak beef sausages - people think that they must be better, even though an actual ingredient of a sausage is the fat, and they end up eating somehing that actually doesn't really taste that nice or succulent.)
Look at Jean-Paul Hévin for example. He does about 30 bars of 65% - 80%, and one at 100% (which he also charges considerably less for). I don't think Pierre Herme even makes stuff higher than 75%. (If you don't know who these people are, sorry - I'm not name dropping - these guys are reall good at their job, and Herme has a couple of places in London if you want to try without leaving the UK. Genuinely worth checking out if you want to go to the next chocolate level after Hotel Chocolat.)
I'm not saying it's wrong for you to like a 100% bar, just as it's not wrong to like a KitKat, but it's genuinely not the best chocolate.
It's just market maturity thing. Brits used to drink beer - then wine arrived and there was some pretty nasty stuff being sold at a premium until peope's tastes matured and they could tell actually the best from what they were told is the best.
Possibly the most in depth chocolate post ever on El Reg?
The best British chocolate is Rococo, available from posh supermarkets everywhere.
Hotel Chocolat does a better job with selling and branding, but not so much with the actual chocolate.
Charbonnel & Walker are good too.
I don't get the macho-chocolatismo >100% cocoa thing. Pretty much everything tastes like compressed charred vegetable matter once the content goes over 80%,
I must speak highly of Hotel Chocolates customer services.
My wife ordered a large slab of the rocky road by post for her friend's birthday.
It arrived broken, she called them, they said they'd send a free replacement and she could keep the broken one.
The replacement arrived broken, in response they sent another replacement and a small box of their chocs by way of apology.
The third was also broken.
I don't remember if it got as far as a fourth broken one but In the end, she took an alternative to the slab as a replacement.
I personally can't help thinking that by the third replacement (taking into account next day courier fees and the cost of the products) it would have been cheaper for them to have sent someone from the local branch in a taxi to deliver the replacement.
The Europeans are snobs about a lot of things including chocolate. I would love to put Belgian chocolatiers in a blind taste test with their British and American compatriots. It would be the Judgement of Paris in 1976 all over again. it's not like they can even claim to grow the bloody stuff though this time.
There is only one place in the world to go for decent chocolate, and that is Belgium. Nowhere else is any good.
Yes, the ability to make decent chocolate STOPS at the Belgian border. Nowhere else in the world can you find anyone with the ability to make chocolate so good.
What a load of tosh. For one thing the Belgians are IMHO a bit too obsessed with minging chocolate smoosh and other pointless frou-frou to make their chocolate consistently enjoyable. That's not to say they don't know a thing or two about it but your statement is nothing more than a pointlessly sweeping generalisation.
This is a tech site, innit? The issue for manufacturers of chocolate-coated biscuits is that the characteristics of a chocolate that works for a bar are different to those that work for enrobing or moulding. If you've ever scoffed your kids' moulded easter eggs (... what?) you'll know that the texture isn't a bit the same as that of a decent-quality bar. During a visit to the RM site in York during the mid-seventies we were given a piece of the KitKat mix to try, and trust me, it really needs the biscuit in the middle to make it palatable. The mouthfeel of chocolate accounts for a lot of its appeal, and that depends on many different factors, especially the fats and oils that are used to supplement or replace the cocoa butter. The chocolatier needs artistry as well as technique.
It is silicon valley we are talking about here, not Glasgow.
More interesting question - how long until the Candyman starts to hand out candy not just out of the boxes on the counter, but from the rolls on the wall. Oh... sorry... he already does... And the world tastes good...
They should've named the next version of Android after Kendal Mint Cake. Google could've done a publicity stunt which involved sending somebody with one of their ruggedized Motorola handsets up Mt. Everest. I don't know how far up the mountain they've bothered to install base stations but it would still have been a more impressive marketing ploy than giving away a few free phones with purchases of KitKats.
That would be potentially risky due to politics. The Romney family who manufacture Kendal Mint Cake are relatives of (thankfully failed) Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney.
I think we may see more branded Android releases in future. L will be Licorice or Lemon Meringue for sure, but after that we go straight to Mars Bar or Milky Way. N will be Nougat, but O will be Oreo.
"No, no, you're thinking of Dwarf Bread, it lasts for months... years... decades... aeons!"
You're not thinking of Elven lembas? I tried to make some myself recently, based on a bag of out of date muesli, some almost out of date porridge oats, butter, golden syrup, brown sugar and a bit of honey. Nice, and definitely moreish, yet in some intangilbe way not quite the sum of its parts.
And I'm sure the out of date cereals weren't to blame - I'm a strong believer in "home maturing", with a particular predilection for out of date Stilton that tastes of soap and smells of ammonia - magic!
No doubt there will those who dogmatically avoid a K-version Android handset in this manner. I very much doubt either Google or Nestlé will care though, as I suspect the Venn diagram of "people who truly avoid giving financial benefit to Nestlé in any way whatsoever" and "people who buy the latest smartphones built by the tiny hands of east asian children" will have a very small overlap.
And to anyone who sucessfully avoids Nestlé utterly and completely - my hat's off to you. They have their fingers in so many pies that I'd imagine successfully avoiding them would take up the same amount of time as having a full time job.
... my arse! As far as I know, the Nestle boycott is still going on after what? nearly 40 years?
At least it gives me a laugh - everybody hurling abuse at Microsoft, not realising that Google - the entity that many champion for Microsoft's de-thronement - is rapidly becoming as bad. And so the wheel turns...
I enjoyed the reactions of my French colleagues when someone brought in a couple of tubes (!) of Vegemite. In fact, the first thing was that someone brought them over to ask me about them. So I said that it's an Australian thing, with a strong and distinctive flavour, but that they'd have to try it because the flavour's a bit hard to describe. (And also because although I get along OK with Marmite - I'm one of the three people world-wide who neither hate it nor love it to bits - I've never actually tried Vegemite.)