Valentine’s is Sunday so if you are shipping via FedEx Ground I’d suggest having your orders in by Wednesday. (FedEx will do Saturday deliveries for residential areas when ordering by Ground mail)

We quickly came to love this chocolate and we know you will as well.

Note: you can go to our main order page to purchase more chocolate for part of your order.

Let us know how you like these. Would you be interested in prints? We’ve been thinking about having a local print shop print them up for order if there is enough interest.

Click on each painting to see a higher resolution version.

Our first bar is our Montanya 70% bar. It is unlike any chocolate we’ve done before. Each time we taste it we call it a lighthearted nibble because of how it make one feel. The main flavor note is marshmallow with a strong nutty subtext. There’s then a fruity note many describe as apricot.

The cacao for our Montanya bar comes from high in the mountains of Venezuala. It is very unusual as cacao normally doesn’t grow high in the mountains. The plantation the beans are from is reachable only on horseback. The bags of cacao beans are brought out by horse or burro.

I’m extremely excited to offer chocolate with this very rare bean. It is now my second favorite chocolate bar. Only our Cuyagua bar can surpass it for me.

Our next bars are a departure as they are both milk chocolate. We made a milk chocolate that even dark chocolate “snobs” love. Yet they offer a great way for people intimidated by dark chocolate to come to appreciate the many subtle flavors dark chocolate offers. They are the perfect balance between mild and creamy with the flavorful notes I love in our dark chocolate bars.

We looked all over the Americas to find high quality milk that would match the quality of our beans. It was harder than you might think to find the perfect pairing. The blending of our Ocumare beans and the milk we use is simply amazing. I can’t describe how lush and rich it tastes. Our Jembrana milk chocolate is among the very best chocolate that I think we have ever produced.

I’m very proud that we could produce a milk chocolate bar that can live up to the Amano name. Our Ocumare milk won a Silver medal at the London Academy of Chocolate. (Our Jembrana milk unfortunately wasn’t finished in time for the judging, but I think it would have done at least as well if not better)

We’re taking pictures of the bars this week. But you can order now – although we won’t be able to ship until the end of the week.

Because so many people have been asking about our bars we are doing a special limited time offer. We will sell both the bars from our website. They simply won’t have the beautiful packaging that is coming. So if you are eager to taste this exquisite new chocolate now is the time.I am most excited about our milk chocolate. We will be offering not only bars but bulk milk chocolate. We looked all over the Americas to find high quality milk that would match the quality of our beans. It was harder than you might think to find the perfect pairing. The blending of our Ocumare and milk is simply amazing. I can’t describe how lush and rich it tastes. I honestly can say I have never had milk chocolate like this before in my life.

Our new single origin bar is unlike any chocolate we’ve done before. Each time I taste it I call it my lighthearted nibble because that’s how it makes me feel. Jovial. The main flavor note is that of marshmallow making this a very fun and unexpected chocolate. Next there is a strong nutty subtext which I generally taste as almost like peanuts. There is a fruity note as well that I can’t quite find words to describe perfectly. The closest I can come is that it is halfway between an apricot and a date. Then if you suck on the chocolate a while you might pick up a slight burnt almond note. It really is an amazing bar.

We have some exciting news. We are now selling single origin cocoa nibs. If you aren’t familiar with nibs, they are the roasted pieces of cocoa we use to make chocolate. What many people don’t realize is how good they are to nibble on. You can use them in many recipes, such as mole. They are also fantastic in salads. One of my favorite things to do is put some on some arugula with an nice vinaigrette and dried cranberries.

We’re selling them in 6oz bags and we have five varieties — each with slightly different flavor due to their origins.

Come visit our online store and try some out.

However don’t worry. We will have more bars from different bean varieties coming out soon. We were trying to get new bars out in time for Christmas but sadly the realities of trying to get new things done (like printing) during the Christmas season got the best of us. Keep returning here to our blog to see when our new bars are out. They’ll hopefully be out in January — just in time to make a special Valentine present to the one you love.

I can tell you that one of our new bars has fast become my favorite. Even supplanting Cuyagua which was my favorite. (And I must confess I’ve horded a bunch of Cuyagua bars for myself to nibble on over the Christmas holidays)

Our new Jembrana 70% Chocolate Bar.
Painting by Martina Shapiro

We’ve updated our packaging. We think that you’ll love our new design. While we loved our old design we were never totally happy with it either. We knew we could do better. We knew we could improve and take things to the next level (just like our chocolate) and that is just what we did.  We commissioned a number of prominent artists (most notably Wulf Barsh) to create original paintings for our each of our bars.  Each painting has as a theme of chocolate or the chocolate’s origin. We have hung all the original paintings here at the factory and they each are very beautiful. We were ecstatic that we were able to get such incredible artists, including Marcia Baldwin, Wulf Barsch, Carlos Serbia, and Martina Shapiro, to create these paintings.  As much as we loved the antique wood cuts from our old bar design we love the opportunities the new design offers us. As new bars are released, we hope to be able to work with additional artists who are just as pasionate about creating beautiful artwork as we are about creating beautiful chocolate.

We are also extremely excited about our brand new bar. It’s called Jembrana. It is made with beans from the south west coast of Bali. It has a very different taste from any of our other bars. There is a nice smoothness underlying the taste with a far more nutty with hints of coffee and perhaps figs and honeycomb.

We know you’ll love the new bar as much as we do. As with our other bars the Jembrana is a 70% single origin dark chocolate. This will let you be able to easily compare the taste with our other bars. We feel that it not only lives up to the Amano tradition of fine chocolate but also shows the range of natural flavors that cacao can take. Our other award winning bars have also received some packaging redesign.

Our Ocumare 70% Chocolate Bar.
Painting by Carlos Serbia

Our Madagascar 70% Chocolate Bar.
Painting by Wulf Barsch

Our Cuyagua 70% Chocolate Bar
Painting by Marcia Baldwin

We have more bars coming. We’re doing everything we can to have them out for Christmas – although we can’t make any promises.