This Is Where You’ll Find the Tastiest Chocolates (and You Probably Wouldn’t Expect It!)

A box of chocolates says more than a thousand words. ‘I love you’, ‘Sorry’, ‘Thank you’; what you can’t bring yourself to say, a box of chocolates will tell them for you. Well… It does depend a little on which chocolates you give. Because if they look embarrassingly awful and taste absolutely terrible, your message suddenly takes on a whole different meaning. The AD test panel tested ten boxes of chocolates, and the winner might just surprise you.

Three chocolate experts (and enthusiasts) took on this unpleasant task. They were Rebecca Smeets (co-founder of De Chocolademeisjes), Noa Vlemmix (winner of the 2024 Dutch Pastry Award for best pastry chef in the Netherlands and chocolatier at Bontom in Nijkerk) and Mario van Eijk (co-owner and founder of two Chocolate Company locations in Rotterdam). According to them, what are the very best chocolates you can buy?

And the winner is…

Do you get them from a luxury chocolatier who has won lots of awards? Or from a major Belgian manufacturer? No, you can ‘simply’ score the best chocolates at HEMA! The box of Belgian chocolates received a 7 from the jury, the highest score. So what makes these chocolates so good? It’s mainly the pleasant mix, according to the jury report. They taste sweet, occasionally a little salty and even slightly sour. There are chocolates in all kinds of shapes, with different colours and sometimes a nut inside. The sizes are good too. Plenty of praise, in other words.

HEMA favourites

Saying that the chocolates are ‘simply’ from HEMA actually does the Netherlands’ beloved chain a disservice. HEMA has proven several times that it can make very good products. Remember when its plain crisps also scored so highly in an official taste test? And let’s not forget the HEMA tompouces, which, in our opinion, are simply cultural heritage.

The best thing is that HEMA always remains incredibly affordable. You can bring home this much-praised box of chocolates for € 3.99 per 150 grams. That’s practically free, right? You might as well take another one for yourself.

Wash it down with coffee

Incidentally, I also want to give some attention to the lowest-rated chocolates on the list: the Elvee handmade pralines from PLUS. Apparently, these are the chocolates that convey such a mixed message, because with a score of 4, they’re not exactly worth writing home about. “You won’t seduce anyone on Valentine’s Day with these, but they’ll wash down grandma’s coffee just fine,” says jury member Rebecca Smeets. Well, that says enough, doesn’t it?

Also read:

• Magnum launches ice cream chocolates
• Albert Heijn sells white hot chocolate: a delicious thirst quencher or sickly sweet sludge?
• Irresistibly delicious: Lidl’s chocolate-covered pistachios

Source: AD, image in article: HEMA.nl