What Is The Best Brand Of Chocolate? | CoachSweetTooth

Quality chocolate is a serious matter for chocolate lovers. Not every brand is as good, and that itches you to find out what is the best brand of chocolate?

Chocolate cravings are bound to hit sooner than later if you are a chocolate lover. However, some chocolate brands leave you wanting more with their unsatisfactory sweetness, texture, and overall flavor. You might be tired of the disappointment when you expect the best.

Lindt is the best chocolate brand, with its popularity prominent in over 120 countries. It’s made from the most exceptional and premium quality Swiss chocolate and nuts. It has some of the best-selling chocolate collections, including Gold Bunny, Lindor Truffle, and the Lindor Excellence chocolate bars.

We get it. You only want your mouth's authentic taste swirling around as a chocolate lover. With the candy aisle exploring options, it is hard to choose as some new chocolatiers are making excellent chocolates, but you don’t want to ditch the classics for their long-standing position.

That’s why we have put together this guide to point you straight to the best chocolate brand that will never disappoint you. We have consulted the most authentic resources to obtain information for this guide, so rest assured you will get only the best.

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The Best Chocolate Brand - Lindt

It is hard to play favorites with chocolates as different moods call for various flavors. Sometimes you want mild sweet milk chocolate, sometimes the sweeter and smoother white chocolate, and other times you just want it dark and bitter. This is why Lindt is the best brand - not only does it have a premium taste and texture, but it also has three chocolate lines, each consisting of a wide array of flavors and forms.

The three chocolate lines of Lindt are:

  • Lindor
  • Excellence
  • Gold Bunny

Lindor

Lindor is Lindt’s most famous line as it consists of various flavors you can get in different collections or forms such as seasonal, stick, truffle, and bar. The 13 flavors of Lindor are:

  • 70% Extra Dark
  • Extra Dark
  • Dark
  • Milk
  • Caramel
  • Sea Salt
  • Dark Caramel Sea Salt
  • Stracciatella
  • Hazelnut
  • Citrus
  • Coconut
  • Fudge Swirl

Excellence

Lindor is the most famous line of Lindor chocolate due to its wide range of flavors from light to dark and infusion of many other elements. However, Excellence is not far behind, and this one is most loved due to its specialization in darker chocolates. You can find different percentages of dark chocolate in the bar form. 70%, 78%, 85%, and 90% are their current varieties. Other flavors in the Excellence chocolate bars are:

  • Roasted Hazelnut
  • Intense Mint
  • A Touch of Sea Salt
  • Chili
  • Intense Orange
  • Extra Creamy
  • Caramel with a Touch of Sea Salt
  • Coconut
  • White Coconut
  • Blackberry with Acai

Gold Bunny

Initially, the Gold Bunny chocolate of Lindt consisted only of the genuine milk chocolate wrapped in a bunny shaped gold paper and decorated with a bunny. This was an effort by the earliest Lindt chocolatier for her daughter, who showed special interest in rabbits. Eventually, Lindt expanded their collection of the Gold Bunny with Lindor Eggs, Mini Figures, and Lindor Truffles as their special easter festive collection.

With so many flavors, collections, and forms of chocolate, Lindt is bound to appeal to people of all ages, from kids to adults. However, not every brand can make the same impact with many flavors as Lindt has made. So what makes Lindt truly exceptional?

The Most Exclusive and Premium Quality Ingredients

The work of fine craftsmanship starts from the selection of raw materials and top-grade materials. The quality of the material is paramount for a chocolate brand to become the best in the world, so the Lindt experts monitor not only the quality in their factories but also the production of raw material and its origin.

Cacao beans are the main raw ingredients for any chocolate, and Lindt ensures that their cacao beans are supplied only from the most exquisite origins in the world. These include Ecuador, Papua New Guinea, Ghana, Madagascar, and the Dominican Republic. Not only that. Other ingredients for their chocolate variety are also sourced from the best origins. These ingredients include vanilla, nuts, almonds, and more.

Lindt does not use all the raw materials produced in their selected locations. Each raw material undergoes a rigorous screening and testing procedure to filter out defective beans and nuts, so only the premium quality raw ingredients are included in the production process. The quality check does not end here. Lindt also ensures that its factory equipment is up to the mark to meet the highest quality standards.

Lindt Ensures Quality, Social, and Agricultural Standards

Lindt’s journey to make their chocolate the world's best is far from perfect. While picking out the finest raw materials and ingredients is vital, maintaining that quality throughout the production phase is the second step in making their masterpieces. This is what they call “Bean to Bar.” Lindt is one of the few chocolatiers worldwide whose chocolate’s authenticity and quality is maintained from its initial form, “the bean,” to its last stage, “the bar.

This allows the manufacturers to control the taste and feeling throughout the process, so the product that reaches the customers is exactly how they desire it. On the other hand, it also shows Lindt’s professionalism and dedication to consumers worldwide. One of the major reasons any brand gains such fame and favoritism is its dedication and personalized services that allow a connection to form with the consumers. Lindt takes special pride in it, which is why it is loved immensely.

Moreover, it is not just the quality they put in their products that yields the results. Lindt pays special attention to its supply chain, ensuring the whole process remains smooth to maintain its supply and quality. In 2008, the company established a Lindt & Sprüngli Farming Program funded by paying a fortune for the cocoa supply and the Lindt Cocoa Foundation.

The farmer’s program invests in the verification and traceability and cocoa beans to keep the quality upright. It also supports the farmers and their communities as an incentive for appreciating quality work, promoting a positive work culture. As a result, the program enhances agricultural and social practices in the region, which helps uplift the farmer’s livelihood and ensures a smooth supply of fine quality cocoa beans for chocolate production.

The Lindt Chocolatiers Draw Attention to Detail

Appearance is as important for a chocolate brand as its quality and taste. Lindt considers their chocolate’s appeal, and the manufacturers know how to make their chocolates look good. You can tell that they are crafted with expert skills just by looking at their chocolates. Lindt chocolates have a more profound texture and design than any other chocolate in the world - one reason why their chocolate bars make a hard knock sound when you break them.

Giving the perfect shape to the chocolate requires pinpoint calculation so the chocolate maintains its shape when cooled. After giving it a nice and glossy look, the chocolates are decorated according to their flavors.

The Lindt chocolate packaging also plays a huge role in making them the world’s best chocolate. From the fonts to the colors, everything in their packaging compliments one another and the company's values - exquisite, premium, and the best in the world.

Now that we know that Lindt is the best brand of chocolate, let’s see what other brands are the closest and most popular among the consumers.

Ferrero Rocher

If the Ferrero Rocher chocolates were not wrapped individually, we would only stop when the box was finished. The individual wrapping takes an extra second to open, and eventually, our laziness kicks in. The Ferrero Rocher is a prime example of taste and texture in a mouthful. The chocolate is made of a center-filled hazelnut chocolate base which is coated with a wafer. The wafer is then coated with a fine layer of chocolate ganache garnished with nuts. Ferrero Rocher feels like all the good chocolate and nuts crushed together and shaped into a ball, so you can enjoy it entirely and not miss any part.

The chocolate is the exact depiction of its name as one of the translations of Rocher is “rock.” You can truly feel your mouth rocking with the rich and creamy chocolate mixed with the most delightful nuts. Ferrero Rocher is also available in almond coconut and dark chocolate. While there are not many varieties of flavor that one of the world's best chocolates offers, you can get it in different box shapes and sizes. This chocolate also makes a wonderful gift with its golden wrapping that gives it a premium look.

Hershey's/Reese's

While both of them have different audiences due to their differences in taste and flavors, we could not decide which to put up front as the leader of these two. After all, how much of a difference does it make when Reese’s is ranked as the second-best-selling chocolate in the USA, and Hershey’s is the fourth?

While Hershey’s offers several types and flavors of chocolates, including dark chocolate, cookies ‘n’ cream, miniature, and special dark mild sweet bar, their basic milk chocolate is the best selling product of the chocolatier. This is because Hershey’s milk chocolate is not as sweet as some other brands’ milk chocolate, such as Cadbury and M&M’s. It has a mild nutty flavor that balances the equation pretty well.

 If you are more of a bitter chocolate person, their special dark mild sweet chocolate bar will satisfy your taste buds well enough. It has a stronger kick than the milk chocolate misses, plus subtle notes of fruit enrich the flavor while the dark chocolate adds some bitterness. Unlike Lindt’s Excellence bars, Hershey’s does not mention the cocoa content percentage on their chocolates. However, this chocolate has satisfied the bitter-sweet cravings of many as it holds a relatively large consumer base for Hershey’s.

On the other hand, Reese’s offers more sweet and mellow chocolate. It does not have many varieties, but then, does it have to? Their peanut butter-filled chocolates are loved by kids and adults alike, making them the second best-selling chocolate in the US. Reese’s is not the one for you if you like something fancy, bitter, dark, or a very premium line of chocolate. The brand’s appeals lie in its simplicity and comfort from the sweet and salty flavor. Some days you just want something basic, and Reese’s chocolate is the best companion for such occasions. The best part is, you can have a lot of it without spending much - one of the top reasons why the majority loves it.

Ghirardelli

The Ghirardelli chocolate bars are for you if you like to be specific about the cocoa content in your chocolate. You can choose from 60% bitter-sweet dark chocolate to 92% extremely bitter chocolate. Although not many see the point in eating chocolate that’s not sweet, it is still one of the best brands of chocolate in the world. If that is not enough, Ghirardelli also has 100% cocoa content chocolate with no milk and sugar, generally made for cooking and baking purposes. On the other hand, their milk chocolate is one of the best you will ever taste. It is smooth on the top and has a solid texture that feels exquisite in the mouth. Like Lindt, you can also hear a snapping sound when breaking the bar - a sign of premium quality chocolate.

About THE AUTHOR

Lori Gilmore

Lori Gilmore

Lori has been a Culinary Arts instructor for twenty years. She has taught in the public school setting, at the collegiate level and through adult continuing education as well as running several cooking and baking camps for children. She has participated in several cooking, cake & chocolate contests and has been well recognized. She has raised thousands of dollars for charities using the byline “Saving the World one Cupcake at a Time”. Additionally, she has had several articles regarding food published in various magazines.

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