Every Saturday night when I was young my Dad would buy five or six chocolate bars that we would eat in front of the TV. We had often eaten a bag of Thorntons Coffee Creams on the way home from football - two if we lost!

There is rarely a day of my life when, at some stage, I don’t eat chocolate. I could go without most other things, but life without chocolate is not to be contemplated.

I’m talking about straight up chocolate here, no flavours, no fruit, no fillings - which rules out of this article Richfield’s quirky 70% Dark Chocolate with Kiwi Fruit from New Zealand and the surprisingly good new Orange and Cardamom Milk from Thorntons new range of blocks - the Sheffield firm’s beautifully presented response to increasing competition from new high end retailers.

Beyond that it’s down to taste. These days it’s not good enough to be a wine snob - you have to be a chocolate snob too! And it is just as silly. We’ve a right to be sceptical about the merits of single estate chocolate. As any whisky drinker will tell you, just because something is from a single source doesn’t make it necessarily better. It just makes for good marketing and better margins. A food-loving friend described one of my dark chocolate favourites as “tasting like soil”. She swears by the virtues of Galaxy.

Honourable mentions here to the Divine range manufactured from Ghanaian fair trade products (who also do the Co-op’s own brand) and to the magnificent drinking chocolate by Charbonnel and Walker.

There are more great chocolate bars than ever. Here are five:

Hotel Chocolat

The Purist 82% Organic Dark  75g £4.50 - The Oracle, Reading.

Hotel Chocolate’s success has been based on brilliant market positioning, an upmarket yet affordable brand and an understanding that selling chocolate is  about occasion and presentation. It helps that the chocolate is really good too. In fact Hotel Chocolate’s Purist bars are among the most interesting dark chocolate around. The Hacienda Iara, Ecuador is just my personal favourite. The Purist’s Library of seven bars makes a fine gift for any foodie friend.

Montezuma’s

Milk Chocolate: The Dark Side 100g  - £1.99 - Waitrose and 2,000 delis/farm shops

Not being ideally positioned for the gift market, Montezuma have recently closed their stores in Windsor and Newbury. However their Foundation Bars, made from Theobroma cacao from the Dominican Republic, are increasingly available in supermarkets as well as specialist stores. Standing out head and shoulders above the others is their 54% Cocoa Solids dark milk chocolate that, like much of the Montezuma range carries a hint of spice in its hidden depths

Green and Black’s

Organic Milk Chocolate 34% Cocoa.  100g - £1.77 (but frequently less) Everywhere.

Over the past decade the quality of chocolate made in the UK has improved immeasurably. Green and Black’s deserve a lot of the credit for that and, though now owned by Cadbury Schweppes, for creating the first organic brand to make the transition to the mainstream. No home is complete without a stock of Green and Black’s Milk.

Willie’s World Class Cacao

Venezuelan Black - 180g blocks. £5.99  Waitrose.

If, like me, you watched the Chanel Four series and found Willie Harcourt-Cooze deeply irritating then perhaps his 100% Cocoa will stick in the throat. But, despite downplaying the fact the he married into landed gentry, he deserves some credit for giving his vision a go and it has to be admitted that the product itself has a lot going for it. OK, so you wouldn’t eat it on the train, but then you don’t need to - just open the foil and sniff occasionally. Certainly the real thing if you want to make mole. Look out for the drinking chocolate reportedly coming soon.

Chocolat Menier

Menier Chocolat Patissier - £1.75 Good Supermarkets

Chocolate as an ingredient is just as important as the stuff to munch in front of the TV. Menier’s French patisserie chocolate mixes beautifully and, though I know nothing of it’s credentials in the organic/fair trade department it makes fantastic fondant. If you are over the Channel bring some back - it’s half the price even at the current exchange rate.