[brailsafe]

On a perhaps unrelated note, I've been paying closer attention to ingredients as inflation continues rampaging. I don't know if I'm just noticing it more or not, but there seems to be an increases prevalence of clever package design that tries to obscure the fact that there is no chocolate in "Chocolatey Chip Cookies" or any Dark Chocolate in Nature Valley Dark Chocolate Protein Granola bars or w/e. But they're on sale for the sweet price of whatever the normal price was before! $5 for 4 bars totalling 148g!

https://www.naturevalley.ca/products/peanut-butter-dark-choc...

They get around the latter example by putting "Flavour" in a tiny font size and color that blends in with the background, on a new line; you have to be looking for it. For something called "Nature Valley", they sure as hell don't give off that vibe

[Rebelgecko]

This predates inflation, but i think it's fascinating to look at the "ice cream" aisle at my grocery store. Most of the items can't legally call themselves ice cream (not enough milk content or too much of ingredients like corn syrup) so the packaging often has some small text with a low contrast against the background color that uses some weird terminology like "frozen dairy dessert".

[brailsafe]

Ya that one for sure predates inflation. I've been seeing it for at least 8 years I feel like. But in that case there are at least options most of the time. Like I can just get haagen-daas or something and not feel screwed. It's also a dessert, so I can just not get it at all or seldomly if the higher cost option is the only one using actual cream.

With more basic things from the shelf, I look at the ingredients and think "Nope, nope, nope, wow even that?, nope, oh this one... has no sugar but 1200mg of sodium wtf!?"

Like if I want sugar, I want to know the thing is a thing I shouldn't be just carelessly eating. I'll get cookies, or a slice of cake, or ya some ice cream. I don't want it in my fucking tomato sauce, and I don't want the tomatoes to actually be tomato-flavoured chunks

[fallowkevin]

Well to be fair how often is chocolate actually chocolate flavor?

One of the cafés I jokingly call it the "luxury space communist café" (since it recently unionized and is next to an electronics store and a buncha designer shops, which has an... interesting effect... on the customer base.)

Anyways, when you set aside the decor and are willing to tolerate a dull roar of vocal fry until you can get your headphones in, it ends up being pretty damn conducive to getting some deep work done. (Water dispenser, power plugs, espresso as bitter as my soul ... I guess designing for the user is feminine? Insert roll eyes emoji here.)

Anyways, they were selling these little squares of 100% dark cocoa and I got one with a crossoint since I was trying to cut back on the sweets and... yeah, they weren't kidding -- it's cocoa... not exactly sweet. Not all all in fact.

Reading your post reminded me of how that felt like a rip off, when really they gave me exactly what was promised -- it's just that Americans think "milk chocolate" when others would expect... something else.

So maybe sometimes they're not deceiving people, they're just trying to give them what they've conditioned them to want.

(God forbid someone have a cortado, everyone has to have a donut the size of a newborn's head with more sugar than a can of coke and a coffee the size of a loaf of bread.)

[brailsafe]

The high cocoa bars from Lindt or other brands are definitely a different vibe. I personally think they're pretty well differentiated here though, with a gigantic 70% or 95% on the front. But if you're unfamiliar with that type of flavour it would be a shock to the system and isn't really my vibe. I guess they're hoping you attribute more quality to them, but the flavor is so different that I'd have a hard time imagining someone wouldn't think of it as a completely different type of chocolate.

I guess what you're saying holds true for a lot of things, like people thinking that bitter dark roasted coffee being associated with quality, when it's often the opposite. I guess that would fall into somewhat misleading marketing influences though, whereas I'm thinking more along the lines of showing chocolate and calling it chocolate when in reality there isn't even cocoa in it at all, just palm oil.

I agree about the cortado, it bothers me how much sugar people get in their system without realizing quite how much or how bad it could be. If all the sugar you got was from an obvious dessert, you probably would have a hard time over-injesting it.

[nasmorn]

Lindt are not hoping for anything. That’s simply how non mil chocolate tastes and they have made it since a long time ago. Apparently enough Americans have taking a liking to it so it is now distributed there as well. Even if all Americans stop buying Lindt will still make it but obviously not export it to the US.

[fallowkevin]

>The high cocoa bars from Lindt or other brands are definitely a different vibe. I personally think they're pretty well differentiated here though, with a gigantic 70% or 95% on the front. But if you're unfamiliar with that type of flavour it would be a shock to the system and isn't really my vibe.

Yeah, I don't know if it's that that last 5% makes a difference or one too many cake donuts demolished my sense of taste, but the one I got was 100% cocoa and... just... not good.

I'd have rather paired my quad espresso with a savory hard boiled egg.

But, thankfully, it was just one teensy square, so I guess the experiment was worth it for the price -- I'd have been much less amused if I'd dropped a lincoln on that thing ;-)

>I guess what you're saying holds true for a lot of things, like people thinking that bitter dark roasted coffee being associated with quality, when it's often the opposite.

I started getting espresso partly because I do want bitter... but I also don't really chance getting a light roast anymore, half because it'll make me too amped but also half because when I do shell out for it, it's rarely good.

(I'm a big fan of Philz, and pourover in general, but there aren't really pour over coffee shops in my area and I'd rather keep it that way than import more Californians.)

>I agree about the cortado, it bothers me how much sugar people get in their system without realizing quite how much or how bad it could be. If all the sugar you got was from an obvious dessert, you probably would have a hard time over-injesting it.

I used to have an eating disorder -- I was quite heavy, and studied book after book on how to be social because I wanted a partner... turns out you seem much more charming when you're not 240lbs. People get so... obsessed with metrics, I suspect it's why studies show sociopaths love black coffee.

I see a lot of midwesterners that I suspect have basically induced dementia by not managing diabetes. Meanwhile, if I go down to the local gas station masquerading as a grocery store and try to make a healthy decision, I literally cannot buy a greek yogurt unless it's got fake strawberry or blueberry or whatever in it.

The Wikipedia article of the day was "Nazi persecution of homosexuals" for Holocaust Rememberance Day yesterday, and it's amazing how many people who have erased "gay" as an insult will continue to view making healthy choices as some kind of tell you're queer. Maybe it is, but it's darkly hilarious to watch folks induce brain rot to avoid lookin' gay, so sorry for a bit of a rant, but this nym, much like the texts I send on coffee shop wifi, will soon disappear when 24 hours have passed... and end up on a path where they will completely lose control of their minds and bodies as they panic that no one is obligated to be caregiver to an abuser.

Anyways, sorry for the wall of text, but... I've had too much caffeine to power through some unpleasant todos, and since marijuana is not legal here I have no way to even out ;-)

(A glass of white wine can help in that regard, but I quit drinking after HOPE went online that one summer. It sure took a lot of effort to convince people Defcon was like, seriously canceled, please, no really, do not come to Defcon it is online stay in your apartments you weird ass hick-i-mori)

[brailsafe]

There are so many different thoughts you're mixing together, but I kind of follow and think you must have adhd. I'm from the midwest of Canada, and there used to be that sort of healthy == gay thing, but I think you have to get pretty rural now to be subjected to it; though I'm not, so maybe that's optimistic. There certainly are still undercurrents of homophobia which is disappointing, but with time.

I've never heard the sociopaths drinking black coffee thing, but it's funny. I used to drink it with a bunch of milk and sugar in it because that's sort of how everyone starts in NA, but I'm glad I took a liking to black coffee, which is obviously way better for you. Pretty hard to drink that gas station stuff sometimes though.

I love coffee, but the roast level isn't super important to me unless it's supposed to be particularly high quality, moreso the origin and brewing method, maybe season.

Anything from central to south america will lean chocolatey/caramel in a good way, but it can be too much for me sometimes. Particularly Brazilian Naturally processed beans, so if you spot that on a sign at the fancy place you go, it'll likely be your vibe.

Most of the shops in my area have customers that are used to Italian or otherwise older euro style coffee, so it leans super bitter and dark, sometimes undrinkably so. My preference is for a bit of bitterness, and a bit of sweetness, and thankfully that's also pretty easy to come by with local roasters importing from all over. The Italian style cheap/dark beans tend to go better in a latte or mixed with milk or ice cream, because the intense bitterness is balanced by the fat and lactose in the milk, which is the most common experience across the continent imo.

Light roasts just help whatever flavours the coffee fruit would have come through, and so a light roast of a south american coffee would have a natural bitterness/cocoa vibe that's probably more pleasant than it coming from a bean that's roasted super dark. If it's from Kenya or Ethiopia, it'll be more likely to be on the fruity side if it's a light roast, or a bit fruity and a bit bitter if it's medium or dark which can be great too. Indonesian stuff is all over, and can be a bit eartht or a bit floral, and central American stuff can be all over too on the high-end.