Chocolate connoisseurs do use some simple tricks to know outright what’s worth trying and what’s not even worth their time. Most chocolate experts would tell you that it all starts with what’s in the chocolate bar. The tag price isn’t always a good indication of what you’re getting in terms of the taste. If you want to play safe, expert advice says look at the ingredients. If you know what to look for, you can shell out a dollar for the best buy in any candy store.

Let’s start with dark chocolates, which chocolate gift baskets often have a lot of. You should not miss the top three ingredients on the label of any brand of dark chocolate: first, cocoa liquor (a.k.a. chocolate or cocoa, sometimes cocoa solids or chocolate mass); second, sugar, which can be in the form of natural sweeteners like cane juice or molasses; third, cocoa butter.

Dark chocolate can also have optional ingredients like soy lecithin, a substance that makes the rest of the ingredients stick together; and vanilla (not vanillin, which is synthetic vanilla not made from milk but from pine sap). You may also want to look at the add-ins to make sure there are no fake substitutes for fruit bits, nuts, essences and flavorings. Keep away from suspicious words like hyrdrogenated or artificial.

When it comes to milk chocolate, which is also a favorite choice in chocolate gift baskets, look for the ingredients mentioned above, and don’t forget milk. You can find milk in chocolates as milk powder, cream or whole milk. While in dark chocolate, cocoa liquor is usually the first ingredient, in milk chocolate, it is generally demoted to second or third because milk chocolate has less cocoa content.

Finally, for white chocolates, don’t bother looking for cocoa liquor because it can’t be there. Instead, white chocolate should only have cocoa butter.

But what if you’re tired of chocolate gift baskets and want to try out chocolate pastries and confections such as truffles and tarts? As with chocolate bars, it doesn’t hurt to check the labels, especially if you’re buying packed confections. If you’re out in a shop and handpicking what you want, it would be good to have the baker or chocolatier handy. Ask him when the products were made, the chocolate brand that was used in making it, and when it was bought. Don’t go near shrink-wrapped boxes. Chances are, they have been preserved to the hilt and have been on display since the last season.

Generally, conscientious chocolate manufacturers will use good beans to make the good chocolates that chocolate gift baskets are made of, and which conscientious bakers will, in turn, buy to make good confections.

Another tip is to look at the packaging. Of course, chocolate gift baskets that you can buy online or off the shelf are always neatly packed. But if you are buying individual bars, make sure to examine the packaging details closely. If it’s packaged well, you can bet that the manufacturer also took a great deal of effort for it to taste well.

So you have one of those chocolate gift baskets before you and you can’t wait to open it. But this time, you don’t want to just gobble up piece after piece. On the contrary, you have time in your hands to enjoy every morsel in the chocolate gift baskets. How do you begin to explore the explosion of sweet and bitter tastes, and the textures of cream, cocoa, nuts and fruits?

First, make sure that the chocolate you are about to taste has been stored at room temperature (about 60 to 70 degrees Fahrenheit). Anything hotter and your chocolates might melt, and anything colder (like the fridge) will destroy its consistency.

If you plan to clear up the contents of chocolate gift baskets, you will necessarily sample several chocolate bars one after the other. Arrange the chocolate bars from the lightest to the darkest. This means white ones go first, followed by milk chocolates, followed by dark chocolates. Make sure to cleanse your palate of any residue taste by taking a couple of swigs of water before you begin, and after every bar you eat.

If you have been reading about chocolates, you know that modern myths say dark chocolate is better than others, and chocolates that are reddish in color have a flavor that’s finer than others. This is totally unsubstantiated, as you will find out when you’ve finished the chocolate gift baskets before you.

So you are now ready to open your first bar. When you break open the packaging, take note of the odor that wafts out. Any good chocolate should emit an aroma that is fruity, earthy or floral. Those made from beans that were not dried or fermented properly will smell like rubber, smoke, plastic or something that’s sickeningly sweet. Make sure to open each packaging away from the chocolate gift baskets because the fusion of the chocolates inside them will necessarily smell different.

Now that you’ve torn off the packaging from your first bar, try breaking it this time. Good chocolates will break with a neat snap and not-so-good ones will be brittle and somewhat soggy. And your chocolate gift baskets could have both. Let a bite-size piece sit on your tongue or leave it sandwiched between your tongue and roof of the mouth. Note if it melts in a creamy consistency, and is neither waxy nor grainy.

You are now ready to delve deeper into your chocolate fantasies! Chew the piece of chocolate and roll it on your tongue and around the mouth like you would a swig of wine. If the chocolates have add-ins or other flavorings, all these flavors should meld together into a seamless fusion.

Just when you think you’re not ready to move on to the next item in your chocolate gift baskets, there’s one more thing that you will need to take note of. After enjoying the bite, see if it leaves an aftertaste. Bad chocolates will leave an unpleasantly bitter aftertaste. The good ones will leave the flavor lingering in your mouth long after the chocolate has melted.

Cacao: the fruit where the cacao bean comes from. Every fruit has only one big bean in the middle. The beans can be bought raw, roasted, ground or in nibs (pounded, crunched up form). They are not things you find in chocolate gift baskets.

Chocolate Liquor: the foundation for dark chocolates (which have a higher chocolate liquor concentrate) and milk chocolates (which has a lower concentrate to make room for milk). It is made by grinding cacao nibs until they form a paste. It is typically formulated with 53% cocoa butter and no alcohol content. (The “liquor” is a misnomer.)

Cocoa: also not likely to be in chocolate gift baskets. It is made by pressing chocolate liquor in a hydraulic press until most of the cocoa butter is squeezed out, leaving only 10 to 20% fat. The residue is left to set before it is further crushed into powder form. Cocoa can also be bought in “dutched” form, which is done by infusing cocoa powder in potassium carbonate solution to darken its color and neutralize its acidity, since potassium carbonate is alkaline.

Ground Chocolate: not to be mixed up with cocoa powder. This is edible chocolate in powder form, and is used in making chocolate beverages.

Chocolate Coating: not “chocolate” in the true sense of the word because it does not use chocolate liquor as basis but vegetable fat, added with sugar, a little cocoa powder, some cocoa butter and chocolate liquor for flavor. You don’t find chocolate coating in chocolate gift baskets but on top of chocolate cakes as decoration.

Couverture: stuff from real chocolate factories, calls to mind images of Willy Wonka’s chocolate river. Couverture is actually dark chocolate but with a little more cocoa butter added into it so it melts gracefully, making it perfect for drizzling on cakes or for flowing from a chocolate fondue.

Gianduja: chocolate, too, but not in the strict sense. It is made from hazelnuts that are toasted and ground until they are powder. Gianduja also tastes like and feels like chocolate, only with a tinge of hazelnut flavor. Some chocolate gift baskets do have Gianduja in them.

Cocoa Butter: Remember how cocoa powder is made? Cocoa butter is the byproduct of this process – the fat that is expelled when you press cocoa liquor to make cocoa powder. Chocolates are made from a mixture of cocoa liquor and cocoa butter. And cocoa butter is responsible for chocolate’s creamy texture.

Chocolate Extract: used to give that hint of chocolate in cooking. It is made by soaking cacao beans in alcohol.

The rest of the chocolate-related terms in our list (like white chocolate, dark chocolate, milk chocolate, bittersweet chocolate, etc.) are those that are found in chocolate gift baskets, and as such, are better tasted than defined with words. So the next time you grab chocolate gift baskets to treat yourself or a friend, think about the countless words that are associated with these delightful goodies, play expert, and practice your chocolatey vocabulary with friends.

History has it that way before people got into the habit of giving chocolate gift baskets for every imaginable occasion, past kings and queens had enjoyed this royal treat. Examples of royal couples whose marriages were sealed with chocolate are Ann of Austria—the daughter of Philip II from Spain—and Louis XIII of France, and Princess Maria Theresa of Spain and Louis XIV of France. While Ann of Austria introduced his French King to the chocolate beverage as part of the dowry, Princess Maria Theresa is said to have gifted his fiancé with chocolate packed in an elegant chest—a step up your usual chocolate gift baskets. It is even said that Louis XIV was so hooked on chocolate that he appointed Sier David Illou as the official manufacturer and supplier of chocolate, making the chocolate trade a fresh source of income for the kingdom.

According to stories, some of the historical luminaries who couldn’t resist chocolate gift baskets were Marquis de Sade, who reportedly laced chocolates with poison; Madame de Pompadour, mistress of Louis XV, and who was said to have mixed chocolate with ambergris when she needed stimulation; and Madame du Barry, former French courtesan and the last mistress of Louis XV, and who was said to have offered chocolate drink to her lovers who needed a boost of stamina.

The history of chocolate is quite expansive. It traces its roots to as far back as 2000BC in the Amazons—a long road indeed for chocolate gift baskets to get to our shelves. From the Amazons, the cocoa plant, which is the main ingredient of chocolate, made its way into the Mayan and Aztec civilizations, before it was discovered by conquistadores and brought into the court of King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella of Spain. It didn’t take long before the whole of Europe got wind of this dark delight. Soon after, Paris, London and Rome, Germany and Austria had caught the chocolate fever, mostly through ornate gifts of chocolate from neighboring monarchs.

Chocoholics and casual chocolate fans should consider themselves lucky that we’re able to enjoy chocolate gift baskets either for giving away or for personal consumption at any given day. If you had lived in 1700 Germany, you would find that chocolate gift baskets—or even chocolate bars—were sheer luxury. Consumption was heavily taxed by the King Frederick III of Prussia, who also prohibited hawking of chocolates to especially ensure that it remained a delicacy for the king and the wealthy.

These days, despite the fact that chocolate gift baskets have become an everyday treat, just like a bag of chips or a case of cold beer, they still haven’t lost their magic, Especially at times when you need a quick sugar fix, you can pop a candy bar or open one of those chocolate gift baskets and you can be sure that the good times will start to roll again. And if a friend needs some perking up, the surefire way to do it is to pick up one of those dainty chocolate gift baskets and pack it up with a whole lotta love.

Commercially available chocolate gift baskets may look too dainty for an average gift-giver to assemble. But fear not! With a little patience, a dash of creativity, and lotsa love for chocolates, you can whip up your own sweet package to give to a loved one or a friend.

How do you start? Of course, the assembly process begins with choosing the items that should go into your chocolate gift baskets. For best results, it is always advisable to pick gourmet chocolates, especially if you’re giving away chocolate gift baskets for an uber-special occasion or to an extra-special person. Of course, you can also go easy on the money and pick out cheaper chocolate brands of different kinds. When putting together chocolate gift baskets, variety is always the spice, just like the way it works with life.

If you are sure about the particular kind of chocolates—dark chocolates, white chocolates, or chocolates of a certain brand—that your recipient loves, you might want to splurge on it. Otherwise, pick out chocolates of different sizes and shapes and packaging so the finished product looks more colorful and livelier. Got a theme in mind, such as “Green is in” or “Hundred Acre Wood”? Pick out chocolates in packaging that matches your theme. Then later, accessorize your chocolate gift baskets with ribbons and cute teddies or gift cards that convey your messaging and theme.

The basket is something that you can go wild with. But when you pick your basket, don’t forget to keep its contents in mind. For example, if you had bought gourmet chocolates, make sure the basket is classy enough to complete the look. However, if your chocolates make up a crazy, fun mix, pick a basket that is just as light and bubbly.

You will also need stuffing for the bottom of the basket so the chocolates are all visible and sticking out. For this, you can use a bunch of straw, light fabric, foam, or shredded colored paper.

You are now ready to arrange your chocolates into chocolate gift baskets! Imagine how you would like your chocolate gift baskets to look overall. Then try to see where each of the pieces will fit into your master plan. Long chocolate bars, for example, look good standing straight up. You can make this possible by sticking small sticks on them with glue, and then sticking them up on the bottom filling in whatever position you want them to be. Big pieces usually look good on the base, with the smaller ones on top. There are no rules when designing your chocolate gift baskets, except maybe this: get creative.

Done with your arrangement? Finish up your delightful masterpiece by wrapping it with clear or colored cellophane, and a cute bow. You can also take it a step further by putting cute little teddies inside or other stuffed toys. You know you’re done when your chocolate gift baskets look too good to dismantle and eat.