It’s Easter, so can we talk about chocolate for a hot minute? Is there a better time? Everyone’s slightly off their face on it currently, but with so much crappy, hyper-sweet stuff ingested about now, we’re bucking the trend and instead wrapping ourselves around bars of the 75% and even the 85% dark stuff. It’s slightly hard-core and if you’ve ever wondered what those percentages mean, we’re here to demystify.

The percentage displayed on chocolate packaging refers to the cocoa content in the bar, representing the proportion of cocoa mass and cocoa butter relative to other ingredients. Such as sugar, milk solids, and additional fats. And if you’re thinking that ALL chocolate has cocoa content – well yes, it does. But exactly how much varies and the cheaper types contain not so much. 

The higher the percentage, the darker and less sweet the chocolate tastes. A 78% dark chocolate contains 78% cocoa mass and cocoa butter, with the remaining percentage typically sugar and other ingredients like cocoa powder and milk fat.

Percentages can range all the way up to 100% and the higher up the scale you go, the bitterer and more wildly intense chocolate flavours you’ll get. The super-high percentage ones are SO strong and SO not sweet they can be a bit of a punish to eat. They’re not really designed for snacking though; they may even have a slightly astringent mouthfeel. Where they shine is when used in baking for a really full-on, deeply chocolate flavour. 

These types of chocolates tend to be more expensive. Firstly, higher cocoa content typically requires higher quality cocoa beans, which can contribute to the cost. Additionally, the production process for dark chocolate with higher percentages requires more cocoa mass relative to other ingredients, which can also increase costs (the cocoa mass is the most exxie part of producing chocolate). Plus, the market for extremely dark chocolate with high cocoa percentages is rather niche, further contributing to a higher price point.