When I offered a Kit Kat to my German friend in the classroom this summer, she flatly refused.
"Chocolates in the US taste like wax! European chocolates are far superior."
I knew I had to find out for myself.
To be the *unbiased* judge of this sweet debate, I set up a taste test. Two chocolates, with the same name, to see if my friends liked them equally.
Here are two Kit Kat bars. Both look alike. A red color pack, similar font, encircled logo, a wafer split into half on both.
Kit Kat wrappers have always been red, except during the second world war, when they turned blue to indicate less chocolate and no fresh milk.
Flip them over to check the ingredients. And you'll see they're two different chocolates.
One uses skim milk and milk fat. The other has whey proteins and butterfat, giving it a creamier texture and smooth, rich mouthfeel.
The use of vegetable oil and polyglycerol polyricinoleate (E476) emulsifier allows chocolate makers to cut costs by reducing the amount of costly cocoa solids in the chocolate. This formula gives one of these bars its waxy texture.
The left one is found in your neighbourhood Deli in the US, while the right one is found everywhere else in the world!
The Hershey Company produces it in the US and for the rest of the world, Kit Kat is made by Nestle.
Cocoa content is key in defining chocolate types. Regulations on the cocoa content in chocolates vary by region and type of chocolate. The Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) mandates "Milk Chocolate shall contain, on a dry matter basis, not less than 25% cocoa solids."
The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) requires milk chocolates to contain at least 10% cocoa solids. Hershey's KitKat just about meets this benchmark, at 11%.
European chocolates have higher standards, and mandate a minimum of 35% cocoa solids for milk chocolate.
In India, the bar is low. As per Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI), just 2.5% cocoa solids are required at minimum. Amul's milk chocolate offers the highest cocoa content at 12.3% in India.
Let's get bipartisan on another pedestrian chocolate: The Dairy Milk.
Here are two Dairy Milk bars. The American version on the left, UK version on the right.
Here's the cocoa in both the chocolates. The rest is sugar, milk, and other ingredients in their composition.
There's two times more cocoa in the UK version of dairy milk!
Hershey's manufactures the chocolate in the US, Cadbury in the UK.
Hershey's process alters the taste of the chocolate. The process breaks down milk using controlled lipolysis, which produces butyric acid, a compound also found in parmesan cheese, and.. vomit.
It adds a tang to the chocolate, which may not work for all taste buds. Some like more acid, some like more bitter.
Evaluated on the three pillars that make or break a chocolate – sugar, fat, and cocoa – Hershey's is overall more sugar, less fat, and much less cocoa.
