4.1.1. Hedonic Ratings

The effect of context was found to not significantly affect the tasting experience of the chocolate types. The increased social element (via context) was found here not contributing enough to change the eating experience. Many reasons could be responsible for this finding, such as:


Pound and Duizer (2000) found similar no context effect results with chocolate type tested in four testing situations, namely, central location, in-home, teaching laboratory, and sensory laboratory. Similarly, context has previously been found to have no effect on the eating experience of cheese [30]. Thus, the effect of context depends on many of the abovementioned factors, which can contribute to the variability of the results.

In the present study, the type of chocolate was found to have significant effects on the hedonic ratings towards certain sensory attributes. Milk chocolate was the most liked product, followed by white chocolate, whereas the dark chocolate was the least liked among all the products (Figure 2). The three types of chocolate products used in this research varied in cocoa content, which were 28% (white), 33% (milk), and 72% (dark). Therefore, their sensory attributes can be largely affected by their ingredients, such as sweetness, bitterness, and cocoa flavor. Glicerina et al. [33] reported that these three chocolate types also have different textual properties. White chocolate has less aggregate structure and the lowest viscosity, whereas dark chocolate has the highest aggregate structure and fewer void spaces between particles. The microstructure and rheological properties of milk chocolate are in-between, which could be the reason for the highest liking scores. It has been reported that consumers prefer less hard and light chocolate products, which could be a support for the findings of the present research as well [34]. Apart from that, consumer preferences and relevant hedonic ratings may also be affected by demographic factors, such as gender [35]. Although the effect of the environment on the hedonic responses was marginal in this study, other reactions of consumers could be affected by the context in which consumers taste the product. As reported by Stelick and Dando [10], the environment where food products are consumed could affect the enjoyment, feelings, and purchase intent of alcoholic drinks [17].
