You may have eaten chocolate all your life. But chances are you’ve never tasted it…

That’s a shame, because chocolate is one of life’s great pleasures and one of society’s permissible vices.

First you should look at the ingredients:

Fine dark chocolate should contain only four: cocoa liquor (the essence of the cocoa bean), cocoa butter (which provides the smoothness), sugar and lecithin (a soy based binding agent).

And fine milk chocolate should only contain one extra ingredient: Milk.

That’s it. There should be no colourings, no chemicals, no artificial ingredients of any kind.

Let the bar come to room temperature, then unwrap it. Be wary of colours that simply don’t look natural or appropriate.

Now, using both hands, take the bar between the thumb and fore finger at opposite ends, and briskly snap the bar in half. Listen. Fine chocolate should give a satisfying snap.

Smell the chocolate. Inhale along the surface of the break. The aroma should be pleasing. It should smell like cocoa.

Bite off a corner of the bar. Hold this on your tongue for moment before chewing, and gently press it against the roof of your mouth, when it should start to melt as it hits body temperature.

Smoothness is key, with no waxy or granular presence.

Fine chocolate contains no artificial flavours, because it does not need them!

You may have signed up to photocopier agreement all your business life too, but you may never have fully read the terms and conditions.

That’s a shame, as many of them include terms which allow the supplier to increase prices at will, charge for unexpected items and make you pay high termination charges, even if the service is poor.

They even make you think they’re doing you a favour by providing new equipment before the old lease has ended, but if fact, they just add the old lease settlement figure back onto your new lease.

That said, there are some fine photocopier suppliers. But first you should read all the ingredients.

They should contain things like:

Short-term agreements. Fixed price guarantees. No termination or hidden charges & all with no strings attached.

Then you should meet them to understand what they stand for and to feel you have trust. Will they be honest and transparent with you, and never stack old lease fees onto new lease agreements?

Fine photocopier suppliers contain no dodgy terms or practices.

…because they don’t need them!