THURSDAY,FEB.14,2002
JAYPLAY
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN = 3R
Panel ranks popular chocolates
By Donovan Atkinson Jayplay writer
While Valentine's Day ranks as the fourth most popular holiday for candy, Halloween is number one—an estimated 35 million heart-shaped boxes of chocolate candies will be sold for Valentine's Day this year, according to the National Confectioners Association. But when consumers are buying sweets for their sweets, are they taking taste into account?
UNDSEY KILIANY/KANSAN
That was the goal: to see if the average college student would be able to find the best Valentine's Dav chocolate.
The other panelists agreed. Nicole Hipp, St. Louis junior, thought the Whitman's was too chewy, while Jim Flaigle, Wichita freshman, and Matt Seger, Newton sophomore, found it too bland.
Chocolate is a traditional gift of Valentine's Day — but which is the best?
Chocolate with nuts
A test panel of four randomly-selected students was asked Sunday to blindly sample chocolates from three well-known confectioners: Russell Stover, Whitman's Sampler and Hershey's Pot of Gold. The students were asked to sample chocolate with nuts, chocolate with caramel filling and chocolate with a random filling.
Chocolate with caramel
Flaigle and Reel chose the Russell Stover chocolate and nut combination as their favorite.
When it came to the first test, the panel did not agree on which chocolate and nut combination was the best, but they all knew which one was the worst. No one on the panel liked the Whitman's Sampler chocolate.
"It was gross," said Sarah Reel, Carlton junior.
Hipp and Seger preferred the Hershey's Pot of Gold sample, with Hipp favoring the dark chocolate that was used.
After the panelists had finished sampling the caramel, they arrived at more of an agreement than they did with the nuts. None of them liked the Hershey sample during this
round, but three of them chose the Russell Stover sample as their favorite.
Seger chose the Whitman sample as his favorite because it was "easier to chew." Reel agreed it was the best of the regular caramels.
"It was a raspberry caramel," said Reel, who said the added flavoring was why it was her favorite.
The panelists thought the chocolate used in the Hershey sample did not taste as good as the other samples.
"It was richer," Flaigle said. "The others were kind of light."
Chocolate with random filling
For this test, three different fillings were selected. For the Whitman's sample, a coconut filling, a chocolate truffle was used from Hershey's and a vanilla creme from Russell Stover.
The panelists unanimously chose the Russell Stover vanilla creme as their favorite.
Hipp, who considers herself a great lover of chocolate, did not like Hershey's chocolate
truffle-filled candy.
"If I weren't biased against the coconut, I'd have to say it was the worst," she said.
The other panelists agreed, with Reel commenting that the quality of chocolate seemed low.
While the coconut won over Hipp, Seger was not impressed.
"Chocolate good, coconut bad," he said.
With the tasting done, the panelists were told which sample belonged to which company. The panelists chose Russell Stover as their favorite brand of Valentine's Day chocolate. They were somewhat surprised to learn that Hershey's was the brand that they disliked the most.
"I figured Hershey's would have a better idea of chocolate," Flagli said.
Contact Atkinson at datkinson@kansan.com. This story was edited by Kyle Ramsey.
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