Chocolate Percentage

There is nothing I love more than shopping for chocolates whenever we go to the grocery store. It is like being transported into pure chocolate heaven, especially if it is a particularly well-stocked grocery store with an aisle of wonderfully heavenly scrumptious, saliva-inducing chocolates. You know what I mean…row after row of absolutely delicious chocolates of all brands, types and percentage.

Yep, you read right. Percentage. It seems like it is a new fad or something that chocolates now comes with numbers proudly emblazoned over its front. You will see 75% or 90% or 99%. So, what are these percentages for? Well, there is no great mystery to it. The reason for it is to clearly state out the percentage of cocoa contained in the bar of chocolate.

Due to recent research over how healthy chocolate could be especially the ones with higher cocoa content,  I guess many manufacturers are finding it more profitable to tell consumers how much cocoa is contained within their products. I can’t conclusively say that the ones with 99% cocoa are healthier or better (since I am not a scientist or doctor) but I sure can comment on the taste!

The ones with about 90% cocoa content are often more bitter (and we all know how I can’t stand bitter stuff) and richer in the sense that you get a thicker cocoa taste which leaves a sort of buttery after taste on your tongue after consumption. I sometimes eat these together with hot cocoa and marshmallows…to take away the after-taste and also the bitterness.

Those in the 60% and 90% range are pretty much like regular dark chocolate except that for 60% it is sweeter and as the percentage increases, the sweetness reduces and bitterness increases. If you are a dark chocolate type of person (like me!), you will have no qualms picking these up but do try the range of different percentages until you get the ones that you really like.

Happy shopping and let’s go lose ourselves in the wonderful aisle full of chocolates….