Where to buy the best gourmet chocolate online.

If you are reading this, it means—Oh dreaded day!—that I have finished this piece. When again will my work consist solely of buying and eating high-end chocolates? When again will I be the life of every party, dispensing pricey bonbons in exchange only for a rating and some commentary? Let us hurry on to the methodology section before I become too despondent.

I tested only boxes of gourmet chocolates that might make nice Valentine's Day presents and could be bought online. I picked my subjects from brands recommended by friends and Slate staffers, and tried always to order the most diverse mix of flavors possible, i.e., the "assorted" box. For those who don't swing both ways (I like only milk myself), a number of the companies I used—Jacques Torres, Godiva, Leonidas, See's, and Purdy's—offer separate milk and dark selections. See's and Gearharts even allow customers to customize their own box.

In total, I tested 11 boxes of chocolates, from those brands that have outposts at malls around the country, such as Godiva and Lindt, to those with only hometown stores, such as Gearharts and Jacques Torres. I judged them in the following categories:

Taste(80 percent of each score): Because no one could reasonably sample all the different flavors in each box, my strategy was to have as many pieces of every brand evaluated by as many different people as possible. To facilitate this, I schlepped around with me at all times a large plastic bag filled with 11 fancy boxes and a knife (giving me the odd feeling that I was doing something suspicious, if not illegal), and whipped the chocolates out at all vaguely appropriate social occasions. In total, 19 people gave scores and rankings to more than 250 individual chocolates. Testers were not told where their samples came from, and, when possible, people tasted a series of like flavors—all dark chocolates with caramel, say—to provide a better basis for comparison. It's worth keeping in mind that people's tastes, of course, differ wildly and that the low-ranked See's and Purdy's were given the highest scores by quite a few testers.

Aesthetics (15 percent): I assigned points based on both the box (tacky? unobjectionable? nicer than anything I have a right to own?), and the chocolates it contained (fresh, artisanal, and lovely to contemplate were all positives). The recent tendency of certain high-end purveyors like Mariebelle and Richart to emblazon their chocolates with colorful pictures and patterns was a point of some contention: They made beautiful art objects but a few people found the drawings "unappetizing" and preferred their chocolates to appear "natural." Never one to be deterred from eating food that looks artificial, I gave these prom queens high points.

Navigation (5 percent): This category includes an appraisal of both each box's layout (a flat box where all the chocolates are visible and accessible at once is the ideal), and the illustrated key to its contents. Poring over luscious photos and evocative descriptions of chocolates I might soon eat is almost as enjoyable to me as actually eating them, and I don't like this pleasure to be monkeyed with in any way. Of course, the worst infraction, of which See's, Leonidas, and Richart stand guilty, is not including a key at all. How am I to know which delicious-looking bonbon is actually booby-trapped with some icky cherry filling?

Initially, I planned to assign some points for "Value"—that is, bang for one's buck. I decided instead, however, that since each reader will know what she's willing to spend for something she likes, and since the most expensive purveyors were by no means bunched at the top of the rankings, it would be better to simply note each brand's price for a 1-pound box (or the closest measurement to this).

Results from worst to best: (Please note that "worst" should be taken as a highly relative term. I'd gladly eat most of the contents of any of these boxes at any time.)

See's: Custom Mix Selection
$13.60 for 1 pound

According to the rules I devised for myself, I should have ordered the "Assorted Chocolates," but I couldn't resist the chance to create my own custom selection from the 65 flavors on this San Francisco-based company's Web site. I'll willingly concede that I chose—perhaps inevitably, considering the nature of the task—like a 5-year-old; the resultant mix was filled with sickeningly sweet cream fillings that it's best to find once or twice per box. (Alas, this left me facing, for not the first time in my life, the fact that perhaps I should not be allowed the privilege of self-determination.) But See's certainly didn't help matters. The packaging consisted of two filmy pieces of white bubble wrap—instead of the crisp, waferlike paper that most other companies provided. The chocolates themselves looked old, ashen, and altogether unappetizing. (The ashen cast is called fat bloom and results when chocolate is exposed to fluctuating temperatures.) As for taste, the See's samples were compared to Milky Way bars, Snickers, ice-cream sandwiches, and other supermarket treats: nothing to spit out but nothing to write home about either.