Why Does Advent Calendar Chocolate Taste Different?

By Sarah Dobbs

If there’s one thing that can make a dark, cold, miserable December morning more bearable, it’s chocolate. Specifically: a tiny square of chocolate that you’ve had to spend five minutes prying out of the grip of the plastic mold inside your Advent calendar. Somehow, there’s something different about Advent calendar chocolate. Technically, you could just break off a chunk of a Hershey Bar every day, but the ritual of finding the right door, carefully opening it, and savoring your prize makes Advent calendar chocolate special.

Is it actually different from normal chocolate, though? Well, that depends on the calendar.

If you buy a branded calendar from a chocolate manufacturer, like Cadbury or Lindt, then you can expect the chocolate to taste pretty similar to the candymaker's regular fare, even if the size and shape of the treat might be different.

Advent calendar chocolate is usually pretty thin, and generally comes as a square with rounded corners and an embossed shape on its surface. That means it will melt quickly when you put it on your tongue, and the relatively large surface area means your taste buds are getting a pretty intense chocolate hit. And while you might typically take another bite or reach for another sweet quite quickly, with Advent calendar chocolate you know you only get one piece per day, so most people will take their time to savor it a little longer.

Basically, it tastes different because you’re paying more attention to it.

If you’ve got a more generic calendar, though, you might be getting a kind of chocolate you don’t often eat.

Cheap chocolate often isn’t "real" chocolate at all: it’s something called compound chocolate, which means that instead of being made with cocoa butter, it’s made with cheaper fats. In all likelihood, it’s made with palm kernel oil, or possibly coconut oil. That gives it a different flavor than true chocolate, and can also give it a slightly different texture, making it seem slightly waxy or a bit oily. Compound chocolate is actually easier to work with and to mold into shapes, and that, along with the lower price point, means it is ideal for Advent calendars.

So yes, you might find that the chocolate in your Advent calendar tastes nothing like the chocolate you plan on serving at your holiday party. Whether you prefer it or not comes down to your own personal taste—plus a healthy dose of nostalgia. If you have fond memories of tucking into Advent calendar chocolate in the lead-up to idyllic childhood Christmases past, it probably tastes like pure joy.

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