US chocolate includes butyric acid which has a kind of vomit taste. It seems to be a preservative decision that originates from earlier days that has remained.
Shit. This explains why some of the store bought lasagne and partisan you can buy in Aus has such a strong smell of vomit. Some are great. Others make you reconsider life decisions.
Hersheys in particular uses soured milk to get that particular acidity, creating a dissonant flavour some seem to like, but it does taste terrible. I’ve sworn off the mass produced US brands for most things as possible, so neither Hersheys (worst), nor Nestle, nor Mars are to the standard of actual chocolate flavour or consistency. As a former patisserie, we always imported chocolate for confections from the EU, and honestly Japan’s mass produced chocolate brands are by far superior to the US.
More specifically it was added to the chocolate in MRE's for use during WWII which for a lot of the soldiers led to them wanting it back home to taste the same. Basically they wanted milk chocolate but the milk would spoil so they add the acid to prevent it from spoiling. Kind of similar to how cigarettes were in those same MRE's and led to a lot of smoking...
Hershey classic recipe chocolate has that, not all of their chocolate even has it.
Other US chocolate brands do not have it and have never used it.
Some of the chocolates people claim have the vomit taste aren't even manufactured or owned by a US company, I've seen people talk about some with the vomit taste that were owned and made by Nestlé.
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u/Frederf220 5h ago
US chocolate includes butyric acid which has a kind of vomit taste. It seems to be a preservative decision that originates from earlier days that has remained.