[regal]

I agree, the Kit Kats outside of the U.S. are quite different from their U.S. counterparts. Although, to me, the taste of the Nestle-manufactured non-U.S. Kit Kat bars are far inferior to the Hershey-manufactured U.S. Kit Kat bars I grew up with. This might be down to the difference between those of us who are supertasters and are most focused on flavor, and those of us who are nontasters and are most focused on texture [1] . I notice that the author's points of contention revolve predominantly around texture, not flavor (chocolate heaven for him is "so rich, so smooth, so crunchy"), whereas when I think about the differences in the Kit Kats, my brain is entirely focused on taste and could care less about texture.

Being long-term situated outside the U.S., I frequently find myself wishing the Hershey-made Kit Kat bars were available to buy up and take to the movies here, but instead end up passing over the comparatively less appealing Nestle version and purchasing M&Ms, which mostly taste the same the world over (though I haven't had them in Hong Kong), instead.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supertaster

[reality_czech]

This is a joke, right?

Hershey's uses paraffin (wax), copious amounts of oil, and so forth to ensure that their product has a uniform texture. If a "nontaster" would prefer any product, it would surely be Hershey's, not a good European chocolate bar.

M&Ms don't taste the same the world over. They taste very different abroad. So you might want to rethink your claim of being a supertaster, since you apparently can't taste most of the differnces the rest of us can!

I grew up with Hershey's, and it was obvious to me from a very early age that it was nasty. I could barely even bring myself to eat pure milk chocolate from them. The only thing that was bearable was if they put peanuts or something else in it to hide the taste.

As a kid, I always assumed that it was because they loaded it up with corn syrup and industrial fats rather than actual cocoa butter. And it turns out I was right... only about 11% cocoa in the "chocolate." It's like Taco Bell and their meat which they're legally not allowed to call meat because it's mostly not from an animal. Using soured milk is just the cherry on top of the shit sundae, as the Angry Video Game Nerd would say.

[secstate]

1. Are you calling yourself a Supertaster? 2. No one can argue with preference. But as linked to earlier in these comments, it is well documented that the U.S. has a very very lax policy on what is allowed to constitute "milk chocolate." Any manufacturer not taking advantage of said lax standards would be idiots. Of course, anyone trying to argue that American chocolate literally has better chocolate flavor and that they know because they are a supertaster is quite wide of the mark indeed. American chocolate != real chocolate.

[regal]

Your argument is that because I don't realize that some other brand of chocolate is superior to Hershey's chocolate, I'm not a supertaster?

Please read the Wikipedia article, or any research on, what a supertaster is. It is not a "person with more distinguished tastes", since these are wholly subjective and cultural constructs. Just as you believe in your own superiority for preferring Swiss chocolate over American chocolate (might you have refined taste in wine as well? [1]), a Chinese citizen no doubt realizes how superior his tastes are to yours for preferring his largely sugar-free chocolate to your (in his eyes) sickeningly sweet, additive-laden, and clearly unrefined dessert of choice.

And if your argument is that Hershey must certainly be producing what it produces in order to "take advantage of lax standards", you've much to learn about the nature of big business. Visit Asia some time, and you'll notice quite quickly how American chain Pizza Hut, which has adapted to the tastes of the locals by changing its recipes and producing all manner of pizzas largely unappealing to Americans but very appealing to Asians, is rapidly outcompeting other American chain Papa John's, which has stuck with its original American recipe, remaining tasty to Americans... but not so tasty to most Asians. Branded food businesses win by serving the market, not by cranking out crappy tasting morsels that cost less to produce. Those that go the latter route fail in their respective markets.

If Hershey is producing what it's producing to "take advantage of lax standards" and not because it's what the market wants, then the American chocolate industry is wide open for someone more willing to produce in line with what Americans want - and with a market as large as the dessert market in a nation of obese individuals, that'd be a pretty tempting niche to fill (maybe Nestle could do the job?). Yet, unless you can point to tremendously high barriers to entry keeping new entrants from the market, or somehow forcing Americans to buy Hershey instead of some of Dove, Nestle, Ferrero Rocher, etc., your premise seems flawed; the far simpler solution is simply that Hershey is winning the chocolate race in America not because it's skirting the rules, but because it's producing what its (so obviously unrefined) customers all want.

[1] http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2013/jun/23/wine-tas...

[secstate]

Sorry I criticized your claim of being a supertaster.

But before we go off on a tangent about how certain markets encourage production of low quality goods, let's go back to your original claim that somehow qualitatively some people prefer texture over flavor. As I already pointed out, except for the functional difference between supertasters, food preference is purely subjective and not worth arguing about.

What is objective is the amount of cacao and milk fat (amongst other ingredients) used in the manufacture of chocolate candy. If what you desire is something with actual chocolate in it, American manfuactured candy (pick your brand, it doesn't matter), it will, objectively, contain less chocolate on average than most other places in the world.

What Hershey's does to their milk chocolate is called adulteration. It is manipulating the amount of the key ingredient in something to produce it is as cheaply as possible. It's the same thing fast food vendors do to their meat to make it go farther.

It may very well be true that American tastes prefer lower-quality chocolate, but that's a chicken and egg problem that I'm not prepared to debate.

I actually find it ironic that you would suggest that supertasters who prefer taste over texture would prefer American Kit Kat bars, as everything I've been led to believe suggests that those who actually prefer taste would lean towards the chocolate with higher milk fat and cacao and less palm oil and wax. The later would provide a more consistent mouthfeel, but would sacrifice taste (which, in my humble opinion, is exactly what happens with American chocolate).

Of course, because supertaster is not a better/worse proposition, but just a different experience with tastes, perhaps there's something about the bitterness of high percentages of cacao (like coffee, green tea, or grapefruit juice) that is unpalatable to someone with a heightened sense of taste.

[thaumasiotes]

Well, I can't dispute the claim that Chinese Pizza Huts are disgusting to Americans and Chinese Papa John'ses aren't; that's pretty much how I feel about them.

Pizza Hut's success isn't necessarily down to adapting its pizzas, though. They do two other things differently: the Pizza Hut menu includes chinese dishes like fried rice, and their branding/decor is super-fancy, whereas the decor at Papa John's says "pizza place".

Also, Papa John's isn't exactly hard to find (in Shanghai, anyway). It's one of a few joints (like Ajisen and KFC) that I think of as ubiquitous.

[nestlequ1k]

So any manufacturer who doesn't produce a product at a minimum level of the government policy is an idiot?

It's as if you don't trust consumers at all. We need government policy to define exactly what chocolate needs to be, otherwise no one will make anything good.

How bout this? Buy a nice bar of Godiva chocolate. Or one of the many premium chocolates you can find at most grocery stores or online.

And yes, American KitKat's are shit.

[secstate]

That's a fair point. Though I would argue that it's awfully hard to find an American chocolatier that doesn't scrape the bottom of the barrel in terms of quality. The only one I can think of off the top of my head is Ghirardelli. Godiva is Belgium by origin, though their headquarters are now in NYC (Turkish owned, however).

If a corporation is looking out for shareholder value, producing chocolate with the least amount of the most expensive ingredient is a savvy move. Even more savvy when the bulk of your clientele doesn't know your chocolate is so bad. Thus, it's quite hard to find an American chocolatier that actually produces high quality chocolate. You can argue about the evils of gov. regulation till the cows come home, but the reality is that you can't really trust consumers because, as a group, we're really bad at communicating our desires and corporations are really good at informing our decisions.

Hell, Hershey's doesn't even temper half of their shit, that's why old Hershey's bars (or other chocolate candy bar) develop a white powder over time. That's the milk solids separating from the cacao. This doesn't happen in high-quality chocolatiers.

[_puk]

Which came first?

The Hershey's "milk chocolate" recipe or the lax standards?!

[mehwoot]

This might be down to the difference between those of us who are supertasters and are most focused on flavor, and those of us who are nontasters and are most focused on texture

Gee, or maybe it's the fact that you enjoy what you grew up eating.

[regal]

I'm surprised at the incivility this comment's provoked in several of the respondents here. My guess is that those who are responding with hackles up and swords raised are misinterpreting the terms "supertaster" and "nontaster" and feeling slighted / offended… which really does nothing but show they've missed the point.

This is not some kind of hierarchy. A "supertaster" (25% of the population; NOT a rarity, for people talking about "claims" as if I said I helmed one of the Fortune 50 or could see through walls) is not superior to someone with a normal amount and distribution of tastebuds in his mouth or someone with a lower than normal amount. He does not have an exquisite palate, and he doesn't have naturally better "taste" than others. In fact, it makes your "taste" far worse: coffee, vegetables, fruit, fish, and the majority of fine dining options are all but unpalatable.

As for people accusing me of liking Hershey's milk chocolate itself - I don't like Hershey's chocolate bars or kisses. Never did. We're talking about the difference between two kinds of Kit Kat bars here, not all of Hershey's vs. all of some other chocolate brand.

My comment was a counter example to the article. The author made a very subjective post - which is fine - but then went on to argue that Hershey is clearly engaged in some sort of conspiracy to deny people delicious Kit Kats, which is not fine unless everyone shares his opinion that the alternative to the Kit Kat Hershey makes is more delicious… and not everyone does. My response could go one of two ways:

1. I could be angry and emotional (as some of my respondents were here), and call the guy a clown and an incompetent, and argue that he's all wrong because Hershey's Kit Kat is fine just the way it is, or

2. I could sit and see if I could come up with a possible reason why two people, one who's "accustomed" to Kit Kat in the United States, and the other, who also grew up accustomed to eating Kit Kat in the United States, had such different reactions on consuming Kit Kat outside the United States. Based on the author's description of his experience eating Kit Kat, which focused entirely on mouthfeel, he seemed to be judging "taste" by texture, which is what taste is to a nontaster.

To those who resorted to insults because their feelings were hurt, next time, before you break out your pitchfork, sit down for a moment and see if you can reason out the (non-emotional) difference between you and an article or comment author, rather than turning to insults, which are entirely unproductive and make you look like someone crying in his milk.

[chrismcb]

It may be that you prefer the inferior American chocolate. But Nestle brand KitKat are definitely better tasting (not sure what texture has to do with it) I know this is only anecdotal but you are probably the first person I've ever seen claim they prefer the Hershey's brand over the Nestle's brand. Are you lumping people into either "supertaster" or "nontaster" category?

[DanBC]

Texture is an important part of the experience. Mouthfeel is something that they test for.

In the UK try a bar of Cadburys and a bar of Galaxy. To me the Cadburys bar is grainy and the Galaxy is smooth. Other people may feel Galaxy is greasy, I guess.

Neither of them have the 'snap' of a good chocalate.

My favourite used to be Michel Cluizel. There's a bit of a problem with high end chocolate, as there is with audiophiles or wine tasting. "It sounds nice" or "it tastes nice" are all that matters (after you have a minimum quality) but high end products make odd claims. I am doubtful of the effect of 'single plantation beans' on the end product. I'd like to see double blind trials on that.

[praxeologist]

>Are you lumping people into either "supertaster" or "nontaster" category?

Apparently this clown did. Real chocolate is bitter, so it is no surprise he might like the inferior Hershey's version.

[reeses]

Some people actually prefer the palm oil in the Nestle KitKats, just as Cadbury tried to tell everyone.

I suspect it's a similar phenomenon with people who prefer HFCS Coke to cane sugar Coke. If you're used to palm oil, cocoa butter will make your chocky bar taste "off".