Why We Thought Lily's Was The Worst Store-Bought Dark Chocolate Bar

Sometimes you just need a bit of chocolate. It is a certified comfort food, after all. Aside from the nostalgia and sensory experience, dark chocolate contains multiple mood enhancing compounds including antioxidants and amino acids, as well as naturally occurring caffeine and endorphins that come in handy if you ever find yourself in the dumps. But, all of that goes to waste if the dark chocolate bar you grab from the grocery store is overly bitter and artificial tasting. And that's precisely what happened when Tasting Table taste testers bit into a bar of Lily's Intensely Dark chocolate.

Of all the options our taste testers tried during their ranking of 20 grocery store dark chocolate bars, Lily's Intensely Dark chocolate was by far the worst. While some customers might appreciate the fact that these bars are sugar free, and are instead made with the sugar substitute stevia, it doesn't do much to actually sweeten the chocolate. In a bar with a 92% cocoa content, even a little bit of sweetness would go a long way, but here the stevia only produces an off-putting artificial aftertaste. Customers seem to agree that these bars are overly bitter and overpriced.

Not only will Lily's Intensely Dark chocolate bars leave a bad taste in your mouth, but the texture won't suffice. These bars don't contain any cocoa butter, leading customers to find them almost chalky in texture, comparing Lily's bars to eating straight cocoa powder.

With so many dark chocolate bar options to choose from at the grocery store, our taste testers stand firm in their choice to never purchase a Lily's Intensely Dark chocolate bar ever again — and you should do the same. Next time you find yourself standing in the grocery store aisle, staring at the overwhelming selection of chocolate bars, follow their advice on how to choose the best snacking chocolate and reach for one of their top three: Choceur, Harrison, or Schogetten. If those aren't available, you can also always reach for the more commonly spotted Dove dark chocolate bar, which our taste testers ranked in fourth place.

If you're a dark chocolate lover who opts for alternative sweeteners whenever possible, do yourself a favor and reach for something other than Lily's Intensely Dark; preferably something like the Hu Simply Dark chocolate bar, or any of their other flavors. Not only are all of Hu's chocolate bars made with coconut sugar as opposed to stevia or traditional refined sugar, but they're also made from 100% organic and fair trade certified chocolate. Unlike the dark chocolate bar from Lily's, Hu chocolate doesn't sacrifice on taste, either, with its Simply Dark chocolate bar rated in the top 10 of all the grocery store dark chocolate bars our taste testers tried.