DAVID GREENE, HOST:
Well, Renee, it's a little early for Easter, but Cadbury is already stocking stores in England with those iconic Creme Eggs.
RENEE MONTAGNE, HOST:
Those chocolate eggs filled with gooey candy whites and yolk.
UNIDENTIFIED CHILD #1: I think Cadbury Eggs are amazing. I found some in my Christmas stocking. And I tried some, and it was really, really good.
UNIDENTIFIED CHILD #2: They are better than normal eggs.
UNIDENTIFIED CHILD #3: Yes. True.
UNIDENTIFIED CHILD #4: They taste scrumptious.
MONTAGNE: In London we caught up with some candy experts, 7- and 8-year-olds, including Will Langdale, Victoria Griffen, Kate Froottit, Emily Knight.
GREENE: Also Carla Skinner, George Mahon, and Max Vonderlinden. And they were - isn't this appropriate? - walking out of a kid's production of "Charlie And The Chocolate Factory."
MONTAGNE: But earlier this week, Cadbury did the unthinkable - daring to tweak its Creme Eggs in the U.K. First, Cadbury reduced the number in a pack from six to five, without dropping the price by an Egg.
GREENE: How dare they. And they have changed the chocolate shell. What's been Cadbury's dairy milk for over four decades is now, quote, "standard cocoa mix chocolate." Our candy experts were skeptical.
UNIDENTIFIED CHILD #1: What's the point of changing it anyway?
UNIDENTIFIED CHILD #5: Yeah what's the point?
UNIDENTIFIED CHILD #6: What was actually the point?
UNIDENTIFIED CHILD #1: There's no point in...
UNIDENTIFIED CHILD #5: It's already delicious.
UNIDENTIFIED CHILD #7: I think of the old recipe was actually kind of better.
UNIDENTIFIED CHILD #4: I like the new recipe.
MONTAGNE: (Laughter). Seems the jury's still out for the younger set. Grown-ups, on the other hand, are furious. Words like outraged, shell-shocked, abomination are all over the British press and social media.
GREENE: Which makes us wonder, what is the big deal? Our food editor at NPR, Alison Richards, says, for Brits of a certain age, this is like messing with a perfect candy time capsule.
ALISON RICHARDS, BYLINE: You know, Christmas would be over, life would be a bit dreary and gray, and then, you know, the first Cadbury's Creme Eggs would start to show up in their glittery-colored paper. And this would be like, you know, a promise of things to come. Forget daffodils, it was the Cadbury's Creme Egg.
GREENE: All about the Eggs.
RICHARDS: All about the Eggs. It was a treat.
GREENE: A seasonal treat. We tried to find some near us in Washington, D.C., but no store had them in stock yet. So to be clear...
RICHARDS: I haven't tried one of these new versions.
GREENE: OK. Full disclosure. You might end up loving it. And...
RICHARDS: I might end up loving it.
MONTAGNE: I might.
GREENE: Chocolatier Paul A. Young...
(LAUGHTER)
GREENE: ...Did not end up loving these new Cadbury Eggs, Renee, when he did do a taste test for the BBC.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
PAUL A. YOUNG: It's a different texture. It's very, very pasty. It's just - they're kind of - the chocolate is now as sweet as the filling.
MONTAGNE: Well, too late. Cadbury's unlikely to backtrack. It's now owned by Mondelez, a spinoff from Kraft.
GREENE: And their U.K. office did not respond to our official request for comment, but they are quoted as saying, quote, "a range of economic factors influenced the decision to change this beloved Easter treat."
(SOUNDBITE OF THE BEATLES SONG, "SAVOY TRUFFLE")
GREENE: It's MORNING EDITION from NPR News. I'm David Greene.
MONTAGNE: And I'm Renee Montagne.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "SAVOY TRUFFLE")
THE BEATLES: (Singing) But you'll have to have them all pulled out after the savoy truffle.