Amano Chocolate produces some of the finest chocolate in the world. They recently won the prestigious gold at the London Academy of Chocolate. This world chocolate competition was judged by some of the top names in chocolate in Europe. The competition included the top chocolate makers of Europe. Amano Chocolate was the first American company ever to win an award by the London Academy of Chocolate. This year every chocolate Amano entered won an award and Amano Chocolate's Madagascar bar was one of only three bars in the world to win the gold.
This sampler pack includes four of Amano Chocolate's top selling chocolate bars including the gold winning Madagascar bar and the silver winning Ocumare bar. It also includes two new bars which were released after the London Academy of Chocolate awards and thus have not yet been entered into that competition. The Guayas and Dos Rios bars have quickly become some of Amano Chocolate's top sellers.
Flavor Notes:
Madagascar: The quality of chocolate is closely tied to time and place. Flavor changes with the seasons and is intricately tied to the soil and climate in which it is grown. Our Madagascar bar is a perfect example of this. Around the end of the 19th century cacao trees from Venezuela were brought to some plantations in Madagascar. We take the beans of the children of those trees to make a mild fruity bar that is our most popular. Our Madagascar bar is loved even by those who don't care for the stronger flavors of dark chocolate. It has a fruity almost plum like flavor that is natural to these beans but sometimes repressed by other chocolate makers. There is a buttery subtext to the bar that many pastry chefs love. At the end of tasting the bar you will natural with a slightly acidic citrus like finish some describe as having a hint of lemon or raspberry.
Ocumare: On the central coast of Venezuela is a remote valley known as Ocumare de la Coasta. This region of the world has been known for its superior criolla cacao since the early 1700's. We carefully roast the hand selected beans with bring from this valley. Our aim is to develop the many unique notes and tones the beans hide within them. When you taste the award winning chocolate we make from these beans you will find fruity and floral notes that pair well with its rich chocolate flavor. You might taste a raisin note in it. You may also pick up slight smoky and woody notes. This is our flagship bar and has long been a favorite of many - just as it was hundreds of years ago.
Guayas: From a fertile guayas river floodplain, indigenous to Ecuador and grown nowhere else in the world comes the Nacional cacao bean. In seclusion farmers have cultivated a wild cacao into a balanced expression of untamed nature and sophistication. We handroast this bean, the pride of Ecuador. On our antique stone grinder we release its characteristic floral aroma. Rich nuanced notes of smoke, green banana and blackberry will transport you to another time and place where magic and love abound.
Dos Rios: Where the mountains meet the seas on the "toe" of Italy, orchards of the exotic bergamot orange, sway in row to peaceful ocean breezes. During our travels in the Dominican Republic, we discovered cocoa beans that naturally taste like bergamot, cinnamon, and clove. I developed special techniques specifically to preserve the delicate flavor of these beans. Unique in all the world, this chocolate will amaze, astound, and fill your senses with the passion of chocolate, bergamot and spice.