The top three

Valrhona Caraïbe, 75g, £2.39
Quality cocoa butter makes the smooth texture linger in your mouth. The flavour is invigoratingly bitter to begin with, but then you’re treated to a lovely sweet, fatty finish.

Côte d’Or, 100g, £1.29
Softer than the rest, with a delicious creamy texture and an almost smoky finish – as if they’ve toasted the cocoa beans. The balance between bitterness and sweetness is perfect.

Bendicks Dark Chocolate, 125g, £1.49
Almost crunchy rather than creamy, with a distinctly green, herbal background. Very tasty, though, and strangely refreshing.

And the rest…

Sainsbury’s Taste The Difference Belgian Dark Chocolate, 100g, 71p
Not as chocolatey as you might feel entitled to expect. For a dark chocolate it’s not especially bitter – in fact, it tastes as though they’ve sweetened it with vanilla.

Organica Swiss Dark Chocolate Bar, 100g, £1.69
Again, there’s a greenness to this, but in this case it just adds to an unappetising sour flavour. Even though there’s a good cocoa butter content, you’re left wondering where that smooth, sexy sensation is.

Green & Black’s Organic Dark Chocolate, 100g, £1.49
The bar has a matt finish, but if it were really good quality it would be far more shiny. Fairly sweet, but with a completely bizarre olive flavour.

Explore Food & Drink

• Gordon Ramsay

• Heston Blumenthal

• Recipes

• Wine

• Real Food

• Anjum Anand

• Eating Out

• Video Recipes

Times Recommends

• How to season a wok
• Chicago Rib Shack hits back at its critics
• Gordon Ramsay: Indian barbecue