There was a time when I hated white chocolate.

As a bona fide dark chocolate enthusiast who preferred the rich flavor notes of cocoa, I often steered clear of the white variety. Not just because of the high sugar content, but also because I felt like they were missing the very thing that makes chocolate so delicious: the actual cocoa bean.

Naturally, when I attended chocolate-making classes, one of my go-to questions for the instructor was: What is white chocolate, exactly? After learning a few details about how it's made, I proceeded to educate my friends about why some of their favorite white chocolate is not real chocolate. (Yes, I was one of those people.) But then, a few years ago, I tasted the most velvety, buttery white chocolate—with notes of cocoa!—and my world was rocked.

I had to know: How is it that some white chocolates have the flavor of cocoa and others don't? And more importantly, is white chocolate considered real chocolate? I enlisted the help of two experts to get to the bottom of this.

• Daniel Corpuz is a chocolatier and pastry chef based in New York City. He is also the founder of Daniel Corpuz Chocolatier, a chocolate brand that offers a variety of bonbons with Filipino and Asian flavors.
• Aaron Sylvester is the founder of Tri-Island Chocolate, a tree-to-bar chocolate farm and factory based in St. George's, Grenada. He's also a founding member of Cross Atlantic Chocolate Collective.