Why US chocolate tastes weird to the rest of the world

Short version: American companies add wax to American chocolate.
- Plus the vomit flavor
  
  Do you like sour cream? That's the same flavor
- But why?
  
  Profit.
  
  wax is yummy

US chocolate covers the entire range from shit that can barely be described as chocolate to the highest quality chocolate that can be produced. I find it easy to buy high quality chocolate at the grocery store whenever I want, its just as accessible as shitty chocolate. Trying to paint US chocolate as one thing is disingenuous or ignorant.
- This seems to happen with Beer too. Yes, America makes shitty beer but also lots of great beer.
  
  The problem is not the fact that they put foreign stuff into it. The problem is that they still call it "beer" then. Or "chocolate".
  This is fraud. They should outright forbid that!
  Do you still call it water when there is 25% sand and 25% cement in it?
  Do you still call it running when they sit down and rest after every 10 meters (or feet or whatever)?
  
  Very true. You can get great locally made beer in every single state. The US has an incredible brewing scene, you can find the highest quality examples of almost every kind of beer in the US. You can also find plenty of the disappointing mass produced bullshit beers just like in every other beer drinking country. I feel bad for all the beer lovers who buy into that bullshit and think its representative of US beer because they are really missing out. There's plenty of things to criticize the US for but a lack of quality beer or chocolate is not it.
- Thag perception is because the "shitty" chocolate is mass marketed and widely available. You're not gonna find gourmet artisan chocolate at a 7-11.
  
  I think you undervalued capitalism, because I’m pretty sure you can
  
  Actually, I think I’m wrong, I think it’s all strictly corporate shit
- Well, the point is, our lowest quality shit chocolate still does not taste like vomit.
- ...come on. That is how things are done, its the same as US beer, in general its shit but I am sure there are loads of microbreweries that everyone here will declare as prime beer. The reality is the everyday common and known brands, making up most of the market are dogshit.
  "
  the highest quality chocolate that can be produced
  Do ye hear yourselves.
- wf has the bougie high quality chocolate which is important, but nobody buys it because its expensive.

Not to defend the US on pretty much anything, but there's basically tiers of chocolate. Low quality mass produced chocolate (hershey's, kit kat, etc) is almost always waxy, overly sweet, and sometimes has that weird butyric acid additive. Mid tier is like your Ghirardelli: popular nationally but more expensive than your low tier chocolate, still often quite sweet but you can at least get dark chocolate. High tier is usually regional artisan chocolate. I like Theo in the PNW but I think that's going national lately.
All of this is NOT a recommendation to buy these chocolates of course. Go get Tony's Chocolonely if you can find it.
- I was all about Tony's until it came out it's high in lead and cadmium. Ghirardelli is the only easy to buy brand for me that isn't high in lead or cadmium.
  
  There's an update that came out at the start of this year. You can find it here.
  Long story short - it's as safe as any other dark chocolate on the market.
  
  https://tonyschocolonely.com/blogs/other/a-small-update-on-health-and-safety-and-heavy-metals
  
  Do you have a source for this?
- But the common "cheap" chocolate like Hersheys is compared to common similarly priced chocolate in Europe. You can find much cheaper chocolate in Europe that is just as bad or worse than Hersheys, but you expect it for that price.
- tony doesnt have super dark chocolate though.
- I'm really not impressed by Tony's chocolate: it's too sweet and not dark enough. I'm used to 80%+ and I always look for the lowest sugar content option.

Because we get rid of as much of the bitterness as possible. Same reason most of us have a little coffee with our cream and sugar.
- The drop in black coffee consumption in the US is a relatively recent trend. Only 18% of people prefer to drink their coffee black – a 56% decrease from 2022.
  If all you're getting from your coffee is bitterness then it's not very good coffee.
  
  But that's how I like it! Not that I can taste bitterness anymore.
- I like my sugar with coffee and cream.
  
  Keep it going full steam.
- Black Starbucks coffee is amazing, though. Somehow you people got that right.
  
  It's over-toasted burnt coffee.
  People are allowed to like it though, and obviously they do (with 400 calories of sugar-fat poured in to make it palatable)

Because it's fake. Or poison. Like most american food.
- Calling it fake is a bit cynical, although I understand where you're coming from. They just pad it with fillings or other stuff to reduce the chocolate content and presumably increase the profit margin. Also possibly to distinguish from other brands. Which isn't to say that chocolate with a higher cocoa content doesn't taste better. It does and I prefer a higher dose of cocoa myself too.
  Peanut butter is the same. I started eating 100% peanut spread instead of peanut butter. It's so good. Now whenever I get regular peanut butter, it barely tastes like peanut to me.
  Fun fact, a German company has been working on synthetic chocolate for a while now. Apparently it is indistinguishable from real chocolate. Haven't tasted it myself though.
  
  My friend, you seem to have some very strange misunderstandings padded with your own self-satisfied explanations.
  Proper peanut butter is simply roasted unsalted peanuts crushed into a paste. Anything beyond that you're getting into tampering and "chalk in milk" territory.
  If you purchase spread, what you are getting is peanuts where the natural peanut oil has been separated and reserved, and replaced with inferior soybean oil.

This is partly due to the use of butyric acid, which gives US chocolate a slightly sour note — which is often unsettling to European palates
It is not "unsettling", it is disgusting. Taste like vomit.

cheap chocolate, like hereseys use butyric acid

It isn't chocolate if you didn't add a nearly lethal amount of high fructose corn syrup to it, the rest of the world are such fools lol

additives such as corn syrup or vegetable fats
What The Forgotten...?
- Shortening (vegetable fats) is a common ingredient in cheap low quality chocolate in Europe too.

However, the market is now growing rapidly and is replacing traditional sweets, especially among younger people. "Indian chocolate is considered an insider tip at the moment," says Julia Moser, "The cocoa beans there have a very distinctive fruitiness with a nutty note."
Indian chocolate would sell well in the US: Americans love anything nutty.

US food companies would add sawdust to everything if they could get away with it.

DW does great articles and reports about food. I liked their documentary on tomatoes: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lPFmhaWHIRg