When it comes to chocolate bars, there’s a ton of options for every budget. You can find them at different price points with everything from $1 to ones costing more than the price of a nice bottle of wine. But is there that much of a difference between cheap and expensive chocolate? Is an expensive chocolate bar worth it? Here’s how a cheap and expensive chocolate bar differ.
Quality Ingredients
The main difference between these chocolate bars is the ingredients used. Craft artisans use nothing but cocoa, cocoa butter, and sugar. Sometimes they might add a bit of vanilla. They use less sugar than large producers. Large producers have a more uniform batch which is a result of blending cheap beans from many cocoa-producing regions. Craft artisans usually use single-origin and single-estate bars, crafted from cocoa beans from one country or one grower.
Growing Cocoa Beans
Chocolate making is a long process and many small artisans work with single farms to see how they’re fermenting and drying cocoa, which affect the flavor of the chocolate.
Production
After the cocoa is grown, fermented, and dried, chocolate makers take over for the farmers. This is when the cocoa is roasted, cracked, winnowed, and ground. It’s then heated and tempered into the shape. The way the cocoa beans are roasted affects the final flavor of the chocolate and small producers often use home ovens, while industrial chocolate producers tend to over-roast beans.
Flavors
When it comes to flavors, craft chocolate bars have lots of variety with a deeper intensity. They can have notes of honey, hay, or raspberries. Large-scale chocolate tastes like the chocolate we’re used to with a smooth flavor.
