Valentine's Chocolate Taste Test: From 'I'll Marry This' to Bathroom Escape

Finding the perfect chocolate bar for Valentine's Day can feel remarkably similar to dating. Some bars are an acquired taste that grows on you over time, while others deliver love at first bite. With the romantic holiday approaching, a comprehensive blind taste test was conducted to identify the very best chocolate bars available in the United States, moving beyond basic supermarket offerings to explore artisanal, fair trade, and premium options.

The Chocolate Dating Game: Methodology and Approach

Ten volunteers from a New York office participated in this delicious experiment, tasting small squares from ten independent chocolate brands while wearing blindfolds to eliminate packaging bias. The selection prioritized companies with ethical certifications such as Fair Trade, Fair for Life, and Ecocert, deliberately avoiding mass-market producers with questionable records. After each sample, participants recorded anonymous feedback, rating overall impression, flavor, and aftertaste on a scale of zero to five hearts.

The results proved surprisingly divisive, with only four chocolates scoring above three hearts. Testers' reviews spanned the emotional spectrum from "I'll marry this one" to "If someone gave that to me on a date, I'd go to the bathroom and not come back." This highlights how personal chocolate preferences can be, much like romantic compatibility.

Crowned Champions: The Four Worthy of Gifting

Best Milk Chocolate: Endangered Species 48% Cocoa

This milk chocolate bar emerged as an instant crowd-pleaser, earning perfect five-heart flavor scores from multiple tasters. Participants praised its creamy texture and balanced sugar-to-chocolate ratio, with several declaring it their favorite of the entire lineup. The brand's commitment to sustainability includes being ocean plastic neutral and donating ten percent of net profits to wildlife conservation. While lacking romance-specific gift sets, its twelve-pack offering provides practical gifting options.

Best Dark Chocolate: Theo 70% Cacao

The Seattle-based chocolate maker impressed testers with its approachable dark chocolate that several described as "uncontroversial. Just good." As North America's first organic and fair trade-certified chocolate factory, Theo has paid over $2.3 million into fair trade cocoa development funds since 2005. For Valentine's Day, the brand offers limited-edition flavors with charming packaging featuring prancing deer and smooching foxes.

Best Vegan Chocolate: Hu Kitchen Cashew Butter + Raspberry

This vegan dark chocolate bar won over testers with its complex flavor profile, combining 70% cacao with organic cashew butter and raspberry. Made with just four organic ingredients, it offers a treat for health-conscious chocolate lovers. While some testers noted unexpected texture from the nut butter filling, most appreciated the fruity flavor that developed gradually.

Best Flavored Chocolate: Beyond Good

Sourced from Ugandan and Malagasy farmers, Beyond Good's bars captured hearts with bold flavors and crunchy textures. The dark chocolate hazelnut bar inspired one tester's marriage proposal, while the vanilla bean micro-batch impressed with its use of heirloom cocoa and vanilla caviar. The brand simplifies Valentine's gifting with variety sets that come in handcrafted clutches and optional gift wrapping.

Chocolate Casualties: Bars That Failed to Impress

Six of the ten tested chocolate bars received mixed or negative reviews, with one bar proving so unappealing that a tester spit out their sample without finishing it. The disappointing lineup included:

Maeve Moon Rocks Truffle Chocolate: Described as "too soft, crackly, crunchy" with popping candy that divided opinions
Blue Stripes Pure Dark Chocolate: Praised by some as "classic dark" but criticized by others for being "hard to break down"
Divine Chocolate Deliciously Smooth Dark Chocolate: Dismissed as tasting like "candy left behind the day after Halloween"
TCHO Perfect Matcha Chocolate: Compared to Play-Doh with overwhelming sweetness drowning out tea notes
Spring & Mulberry Mixed Berry Date-Sweetened Chocolate: Evoked comments about ending "single and sad" with dry, chewy texture
Alter Eco Total Blackout Chocolate: Inspired the most dramatic rejection, with one tester declaring they wouldn't return from the bathroom if given this on a date

The Growing Premium Chocolate Market

The taste test reflects broader trends in the chocolate industry, where one in six new products now claims premium status. Grocery shelves increasingly feature artisanal, fair trade, organic, bean-to-bar, handcrafted, and single-origin chocolates. This expansion offers consumers more choice than ever but also creates confusion about which brands actually deliver superior taste.

For Valentine's Day shoppers seeking chocolate gifts, the test results suggest that ethical credentials don't necessarily guarantee delicious flavor. The four winning bars combine quality ingredients with thoughtful production methods, while the failed examples demonstrate that innovative concepts sometimes sacrifice taste. As with romantic partnerships, finding the right chocolate requires careful consideration of both substance and style.