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Q: Why is Chinese chocolate so terrible?
They dominate in every other food sphere, except sweets/pudding and chocolate. Dove taste like wax poo.
You like Chinese bread?
The missing ingredient is SUGAR
Most of the chocolate doesn't have real milk in it.
I can't wait for the day Twix's are widely available.
The answer is because of a few factors:
First, chocolate is a relatively new treat in China. It was first brought here as "medicine" during the Qing Dynasty, but only recently (like the past 30 years or so) has it been available for mass consumption as far as I'm aware. Big companies such as Cadbury, Nestle, etc. came into the market during the 80's and local companies were not able to compete with these huge companies, so they made their products with cheaper ingredients to cut costs.
Perhaps many people have become accustomed to this style or it is just the preference now. Dove is I believe the #1 selling brand in China.
Second, because of cost, many types of chocolate do not use cocoa butter in their recipes, which in my opinion is essential for chocolate. Hershey's in the US did away with it as well to cut costs a while back and their chocolate has gone down hill since. It sort of tastes like chocolate, but the consistency is wrong.
I totally know what you mean! Chocolate has a weird weird taste her. Maybe it's the pollution or something. Last time, I tried that strawberry and chocolate mix with my Chinese girlfriend. She was very reluctant at first, because she said "chocolate is no good" but i still wanted to try it.
Well I should have listenened to her. Strawberry was ok, chocolate was definitely not.... I still got the taste imprinted in my tongue's buds, and it feels really weird...
Mr. Tibbles hot the nail on the head with his answer. The main reason is the lack of cocao butter in Chinese chocolate products. It's the cocoa butter that makes all the difference and in the EU chocolate has to contain a certain percentage of cocoa butter to qualify as real chocolate. According to EU law, they can substitute 5% of the cocoa fat with something else and still be allowed to call it chocolate.
In the US, the major chocolate companies like Hersheys actually tried to lobby the government to allow hydrogenated vegetable fats to take the place of cocoa butter, but eventually this proposal was contested by the general public. However, Hershey's do continue to use veg fat in their products, which is why as MR.Tibbles said, it's gone down hill. I'd like to go further and say that Hershey's is just as bad, if not worse, than some Chinese manaufactored chocolate.
Obviously China has no such cocoa standards. In defense of Dove chocolate however, Dove does contain cocoa butter and seems to be made by the same company that does Galaxy chocolate in the West. It may not be the best chocolate, but it's notably better than the really terrible chocolate candy like Myikes (and Hersheys).
