What the fuck have they done to chocolate?

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I just treated myself to a nice bar of galaxy....

It's grim

Never seen the orange one... sounds amazing!
They do a particularly good raisin and almond milk 🤤

Best chocolate I've eaten in years was dutch: Tony's Chocolonely. It's brilliant and will be stocked in the UK from next year - I found that gem out because this thread made me think of that bar!

I could only find it in gigantic bars. And ate around 4 of them in the 8 days we were in Holland.

Just placed my Love Cocoa order. Got some lovely chocolate yesterday from an independent shop but sadly they are not local and I don’t think they deliver. Hoping for good things from LC.

Ok, so Love Cocoa results...

The orange one is AMAZING

The honey and honeycomb one needs to have more honey and honeycomb in! Not enough for it to be really noticeable for me, as per a PP.

LOVE the white chocolate and rose one, although I was intrigued to learn you can have a named ingredient even if it only consists of 0.005% of the recipe...

Funnily enough DH has just come home with a box of Maltesers he got from work... I am SO not tempted!

My Love Cocoa sample sizes arrived today, the milk choc honeycomb and the dark choc sea salt.

I think they must have got too hot somewhere as although the shape etc was still perfect, the chocolate was dull not shiny and had a white bloom to it.

They also didn't melt at mouth temperature and I had to have a mouthful of tea at the same time to get it to melt, as was just strangely chewy otherwise. So disappointed 😞 as was looking forward to my delivery no end.

I'm undecided as to whether this has put me off ordering from them in the future. I really wanted to love it but feel sadly disappointed. I suppose it's been hot enough inside a vehicle that it could have got too warm inside the Royal Mail delivery lorry yesterday. Perhaps online chocolate ordering is only a thing to do in the colder months.

Looks like I shall be on the hunt for Divine choc when I next go to Waitrose.

I do think Love Cocoa could do with a slightly lower melting temp to get that melt in the mouth thing going.

Am a choc-in-the-fridge girl and have only tried it cold thus far. Just inhaled eaten a 30g dark choc and sea salt bar again...yum! My Avocado and English Mint bars have arrived. Not tried yet...in fridge...will try soon though!

My Love Cocoa sample sizes arrived today, the milk choc honeycomb and the dark choc sea salt
I think they must have got too hot somewhere as although the shape etc was still perfect, the chocolate was dull not shiny and had a white bloom to it
Same here ClaireFraser. I found the dark chocolate had a strange crumbly texture, and the honeycomb not very chocolaty.
I was disappointed too. But would prob still order again, if only just to try all the others

Come on over to Australia, the Dairy Milk is palm and shea free and still has fresh milk in. It's not the same (it's been made so it doesn't melt so easily!) but it's waaaay better than the UK stuff. Our local UK shop is full of Cadburys chocolates they can't get rid of. And we also have the fabulous Whittakers, I love their coconut rough...

I had the same with the LC sea salt and the honey honeycomb. My mum loved the dark with sea salt but it was too dark for me at 70% and very crumbly and hard.The honeycomb needed bigger pieces of honeycomb I think and not to have actual honey in it too. It was nice though. However I loved the 37% milk and the salted caramel so I don't think the sea salt and honeycomb were the best samples to choose to put on offer. I loved the size of them though as a perfect size for just one person as a treat. I hope those who didn't like the samples aren't put off from ordering other flavours

@ClaireFraser my samples also had the white bloom, but my boxed delivery did not.

Actually thinking about it, maybe they were going cheap because they’d bloomed?

This from Morrisons is really good

https://groceries.morrisons.com/webshop/product/Morrisons-The-Best-32-Cocoa-Chocolate-Almond-Hazelnut--Salt/325989011

I tried the LC trial ones (Honeycomb & sea salt) but was quite disappointed

My Irish Cadbury's has arrived and whilst it does contain palm and Shea it doesn't have the same cloying effect or aftertaste so is nicer. My little boy is loving all this chocolate tasting!

My delivery arrived earlier, incredibly quickly given it was only ordered yesterday AM.

I bought a selection, and all are covered in bloom too. None of the chocolate tastes/melts the same as the bar(s) I bought in Planet Organic which weren't covered in bloom.

Disappointing.

Ahh. Just had an email from James at Love Cocoa thanking me for my order. I took the opportunity to respond about the bloom covered chocolate.

It's really weird about the bloom. @StellaRockafella which flavours did you order?

PerverseConverse

I purchased the 'mumsnet' bars, so the salted dark chocolate and honeycomb, and also 3 bars of the 37% milk chocolate which were discounted.

I'd bought two bars of 37% milk from Planet Organic earlier this week, and both were fine and how I knew the bars direct from Love Cocoa had a slightly different taste/texture because of the bloom/discolouration.

I think it's a sign to continue to not eat chocolate, so will do just that!

Had a couple of freddos yesterday and they tasted like I remember Cadbury’s so will be getting them from now on. At least forced me to use some position control.

Tried divine salted caramel milk choc and not massively keen. I just think their milk choc is a bit bland. The salted caremel livens it up a bit.

Have also done a love cocoa order. V excited. Ordered the discounted milk choc, honey choc, as well as an orange and a coffee flavour one. I don’t like dark choc. Will report back.

Just read about the bloom. What does that mean btw. Not really a choc expert. Will have a look on my order when I get it.

Having seen it recommended here, I tracked down some Irish Cadbury online. Possibly should've read the description a bit more closely, the picture made it look as though they were sharing size bars (shown with my lunchtime cuppa for scale) I may have paid £2.30 each for these. Oh well. Will try them later with DH, to further my research

Allegorical and to anyone else who is wondering what bloom looks like

The darker bar is the dark chocolate with sea salt. The white on it is bloom, and notice how dull the chocolate is. Usually dark chocolate has a lovely shine on it.

The other bigger bar is the 37% milk chocolate. It's bloomed and discoloured, shiny in parts but mostly dull. The bar I bought earlier in the week was not coloured like this. It also had a much better taste, texture and snap.

All the bars pictured crumble in a way chocolate shouldn't.

Just an update to say I've already had a response from James!

"Hi StellaRockaFella,

Thanks for your feedback.

The 37% were on discount as we are discounting rather than any issues.

We fulfilled your order from our office as we made up the sample packs for MUMSNET. It did get hot in our office over the summer so may have bloomed slightly from this. Many apologies about this, I was unaware the chocolate may have bloomed but will send replacements from our warehouse.

Kind regards,
James'

I honestly wasn't expecting any replacements so can only say the customer service is second to none.