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  "description": "Premium cocoa brands are discovering that consumers object less to indulgence than to the insistence that indulgence remains universally accessible",
  "path": "/like-water-for-chocolate-and-the-creation-of-affordable-luxury/",
  "publishedAt": "2026-05-22T13:47:02.000Z",
  "site": "https://cocoaradar.com",
  "tags": [
    "Subscribe now"
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  "textContent": "On a rainy weekday morning in London, an £8.60 hot chocolate arrives in a paper cup, complete with all the visual cues of everyday convenience: a takeaway lid, a branded sleeve, and a delivery app receipt. Yet the price increasingly places the drink in a very different psychological category.\n\nFor many consumers, it no longer competes with supermarket cocoa powder or a homemade treat. It competes with lunch, transport fares, or a portion of a household utility bill.\n\nThat distinction sits at the centre of a growing tension confronting premium drinking chocolate brands such as Knoops, Hotel Chocolat, Max Brenner, and Dandelion Chocolate.\n\nAcross Europe and North America, companies built around artisanal cacao, café rituals, and elevated indulgence are attempting to hold two positions simultaneously: that they are premium, carefully sourced, and experiential – but also broadly accessible.\n\nAdvertisement\n\n\n\n\n\nDuring years of cheap capital and rising urban consumption, that balancing act was relatively easy to sustain. During a prolonged cost-of-living crisis, it has become considerably harder.\n\nThe debate now unfolding around premium chocolate mirrors the criticism increasingly directed at coffee chains such as Starbucks, where executives have leaned heavily on phrases such as ‘affordable luxury,’ ‘accessible premium’, and ‘elevated daily ritual’.\n\n### This post is for subscribers only\n\nBecome a member to get access to all content\n\nSubscribe now",
  "title": "Like Water For Chocolate And The Creation of ‘Affordable Luxury’",
  "updatedAt": "2026-05-22T13:47:04.118Z"
}