Terry's Chocolate Orange - still going strong (Terry's Chocolate Orange)

Member Name: dmandrew

Product:	Terry's Chocolate Orange
Date:	26/03/08 (89 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Is always well received

Disadvantages: Chocolate quality is quite good - lowish cocoa content

The Terry's Chocolate Orange (now made by Kraft now that Terry's of York are no more) always makes a great present. It's superbly and brilliantly packaged, so you hardly need to wrap it up. You get an attractively coloured box, with, brilliantly, a peep-hole, through which you can spy, lurking like a real elephant in a room, the treasure inside. It looks like you can touch it, but it's cleverly protected by transparent plastic

It's a 175g ball of chocolate, wrapped up in colour printed foil to make it look like an orange. OK, nobody's actually fooled by this: you know you're getting chocolate, but part of what Terry's are marketing is a little bit of drama, even though you know how the story is going to turn out.

There used to be genteel advice given - "Tap and unwrap". The theory was that when you did unwrap, the contents would neatly divide themselves into the pre-made segments, forming an attractive pattern around the plate you were going to serve them on.

I have never got this to work, and it looks like nobody else has either because it now says "Whack and unwrap". Apparently it is such a challenge that Terry's made a virtue out of a fault and did some TV advertising featuring Dawn French and a rolling pin. I never saw this but the mind boggles.

When you do unwrap it, if you have whacked it by the right amount you then can smell the chocolate. It contains orange oil, so it does smell good. The chocolate inside is good - quite creamy, and tempting for just another segment. It's not top-notch choc, though, only 25% minimum cocoa solids, but you don't generally buy one of these for yourself, and if you are lucky enough to get given one, then you just enjoy it.

Prices can vary hugely, but they can be got for around £2. It's also available in plain chocolate and in white chocolate, and other variants also exist - "tangy" or "Mint".

For a bit of fun, here's a link to an old TV ad:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=15oq2DH_Njw

Summary: A good thing to buy for someone else or to be given