To just want old chocolate back

[SideEyeSally]

I really rarely eat chocolate these days but thought I'd treat myself over xmas. All the ones I used to love and remember fondly Roses, Dairy Milk, Heroes, Quality Street just tasted greasy and dissapointing. My sister has suggested splashing out on high end Hotel Chocolate next year but I don't want posh chocolate I want cheap chocolate from 20 years ago. I would pay good money to a company that could sell me a perfect dupe of the Dairy Milk I grew up with.

Yes, I know F&M chocolates are very expensive and not stocked in the Spar. I only get a box for my birthday and Valentine’s Day and ration myself to a couple per day to make them last!

Thank you for starting this thread OP. I gave my DS a piece of dairy milk chocolate two years ago and he had a wild suger reaction and has refused to eat chocolate ever since. I can't eat chocolate at all, so had no idea that it had changed. This is really very useful to know.

Don't bother with hotel chocolat either most of them taste rubbish now too!

Hotel Chocolat have been in steady decline since they changed to being a heavily marketed high street supplier.

Back when they were mail order only as The Chocolate Tasting Club they were great, with different exciting recipes each month, high quality chocolate and fillings with lots of booze, fresh cherries, nuts etc. They also used to be properly hand dipped/had a thick chocolate layer poured onto them.

When they started making more and more of them fully moulded, and bland fillings they went downhill fast. It’s very similar to the decline of Thorntons in the 90s: they start swapping out high quality ingredients, add preservatives and make the fillings drier so that they last longer on the shelf, then they start to taste bland and unnatural.

Green & Blacks still tastes good and doesn't have palm oil in it.
It's so sad how it's profit over taste these days.

Same. I had a hankering for them a while ago, and could not believe how bad they were, they just tasted of sugar, so sweet, horrible! I binned them. I was given a box of Divine after dinner mint thins. They tasted how After eights used to taste imo. I sometimes see them in my local oxfam, or I just order from the company.

@Barneysmomma "Aspartame gives me awful 3 day headaches - struggle to find any softc drinks without it even Pepsi has gone to the dark side."

Try Karma Cola, and the other karma drinks, sweetened with Stevia. Aspartame is horrendously bad for you. I succumbed to a Diet Coke at a friends house after 20 years not drinking it and felt really unwell. Horrific migraine.

They really don't - I bought my brother some for Christmas and we both spat them out. A huge shame 🙁

@Fundays12 Good luck! ☺️

I've just remembered another one.. yorkies used to be delicious, and so unique tasting. They taste of nothing now.

Ohh they were so good years ago but pretty rubbish now.

Oh that's brilliant. Let me know if you enjoy it.

I wonder what the big chocolate companies' long-term plans are? Surely they know that you can only ride on the past glories of a respected brand for so long before people get wise and abandon you?

Or are they banking on children growing up with the rubbish new stuff as normal - having never lived through the time of the good old proper chocolate - and then just never thinking to question it their whole lives?

It's so sad that they'll cheerfully throw away such a solid, grand legacy in pursuit of even greater profits, when they were hardly struggling before.

Yes the latter. That the young don’t know any different. And get used to the taste. And addicted to the sugar.

And of course get profit. Agree with pp about the lack of pride in the product. Cadbury’s sale shouldn’t have happened.

Seriously who is "binning" whole boxes/bars of fairly expensive chocolate?! Or even "just" tubs like Quality Street? If you don't like them pass them on or donate them, I absolutely guarantee someone will enjoy and be grateful for them. What a fucking waste!

Agree with the negative comments on Hotel Chocolat. I thought that I liked any chocolate with chili in, but I tried theirs and it was a bland but inoffensive praline that developed a really unpleasant and overpowering chili aftertaste. It also didn't feel like a high-quality luxury brand.

No one I knows likes it either, shall I just eat it as it's a waste? It's vile and I really love chocolate!

Our community fridge won't take opened chocolates so couldn't donate them.

I still miss the proper Cadburys mini eggs. Last ones I had were not the same!

I think yeah they rely on younger generations not knowing any better, and having such a big name that they are located in entrances and end of aisles of shops and supermarkets so people will pick them up.
And maybe also they are part of huge umbrella companies now that do so many brands so a dip in profits not as big a deal? It's all a shame though..

The big red jolly M&S Christmas box this year was very good. I scoffed the giant star in the centre last night. We are drowning in chocolate gifts again this year.

Aldi in the large blue wrappers it’s cheap and it’s great chocolate

James Cadbury has his own ethically sourced, palm oil free chocolate company nowadays.
It's called lovecocoa.com
Costs about £5 a bar

Audreys chocolates are also very nice, bit pricier than lovecocoa but handmade in Britain and palm oil free.
Think they supply to Fortnums, they certainly taste extremely similar.
I love Audreys pick your own boxes as I can fill them with rose, violet and lime creams (my favourites, but they do more than just cream centred)

The only chocolate I would buy in a supermarket nowadays is Guylian (the seashells) which do not contain any palm oil so far.

On the plus side, with chocolate now priced so high we eat far less of it than we used to which makes it far more of a treat.

Marks and Spencer chocolate doesn’t have any palm oil.

This.