What makes a good chocolate?

A fine chocolate needs the right balance of good looks, flavour, and freshness. But our tasters found the nut centres of some chocolates stale, chewy, and unusually small. And many of the fruit-flavoured centres were too sweet, with an "artificial" taste. What's more, sometimes the flavour of the filling didn't match its description.

Appearance is important. Some of the chocolates were clumsily made. Excess chocolate pooling at the base and air bubbles on the surface of the chocolates were common faults.

Tasters often remarked on the mismatch between the type of chocolate (milk, dark, or marbled white-and-milk) and its filling. They suggested that a bitter-sweet dark chocolate coating might help balance some of the sticky sweet fillings.

Does price matter?

The assortments ranged in price from around $11 to $39 per box (and between 49c and $1.39 per chocolate).

Price didn't mean all that much. The most expensive chocolates we tasted - Bennetts of Mangawhai Gold Ballotin Box ($1.20/chocolate) and de Spa Chocolatier Diamond Assortment ($1.39/chocolate) - were judged "good", but not outstanding.

And they weren't as good as the less expensive Duc d'O ($1.00/chocolate) and Lindt ($1.07/chocolate) - which were the best of the bunch.

Interestingly, the Queen Anne Chocolates ($0.98/chocolate) that our tasters marked down as "below average" were a similar price to the highest-rating chocolates.

Do they taste as good as they used to?

The Queen Anne Chocolates were lacking in both finesse and flavour, but they may still appeal to those with fond memories of receiving a pound of these chocolates in days gone by.

This iconic Kiwi brand was established by Ernest Adams in the 1920s and enjoyed several decades of success, with ice cream and confectionery shops throughout New Zealand. Faced with increasing competition from supermarkets, Queen Anne Chocolates disappeared in 1976.

The brand was re-launched in the late 1990s by Sarah Adams (granddaughter of Ernest) using the original recipes. Sadly, our tasting shows they've not kept up with the competition - nor with modern tastes in chocolate.