We’ll be at the Utah Chocolate Show this Friday and Saturday at the South Towne Exposition Center.

9575 S State Street
Sandy, UT
(Directions here)

This was the very first chocolate show we ever went to when we had just barely got our equipment working and weren’t even selling chocolate yet. So it holds a bit of a special place in our hearts. This year we won’t be able to bring out our Melangeur as we have in past years. Primarily because we’re using it to make chocolate here at the factory for Christmas. Yes, we’ll be in production right up to the time of the show. It’s been a busy year for us. (You can check out our virtual factory tour though)

So please come out to see us there. Raymond Lammers, the award winning pastry chef at Stein Eriksen Lodge will be there. (He has an amazing desert using our chocolate you ought try) It should be a very good time for all.

We’re going to be doing several Twitter giveaways this month. The rules for the giveaway are:

1. Follow us on twitter. (Go to the Amano Chocolate Twitter page and click follow)

2. Post on your twitter account the twitter message we send out:

Win a free box of Amano Chocolate. $84 value. Tweet this message to enter. See http://bit.ly/2bNFi1.

3. We’ll do a search for that message and pick a random follower. The prize will be a 10 bar variety pack of Amano Chocolate valued at $84. We’ll give about 2 days to pick a winner. That’ll give everyone a chance to tweet the message.

4. We’ll announce the winner so check your twitter account to see if you won. If you won send us a Direct Message on Twitter or email us at amano@amanochocolate.com with your shipping address and we’ll ship your chocolate that day.

Let us know if you have any questions. We’ll tweet the contest a few times over the next two days to ensure everyone sees it. (We know what it is like to be overwhelmed by twitter feeds)

Note: The contest is only open to people in the United States, Canada, and Mexico. (Sorry – shipping to the rest of the world is very expensive)

From our focus on the science of chocolate comes a report from The Journal of Proteome Research. Chocolate appears to reduce the level of stress hormones in the body. According to the article

The study provides strong evidence that a daily consumption of 40 grams [1.4 ounces] during a period of two weeks is sufficient to modify the metabolism of healthy human volunteers,” wrote the researchers, from the Nestle Research Center in Lausanne, Switzerland. The chocolate also appeared to help correct other imbalances in the body that are related to stress.

So if you’re stressed with the holidays, order some Amano Chocolate.

One of my favorite things to cook with our chocolate is chocolate torte. It’s fantastic by itself or with ice cream. This is one of my favorite recipes for torte. I honestly have no idea who originally gave me this recipe. It’s been on 3×4 cards for quite some time. For those of you not familiar with torte it is a cake which has no flour in it.

Here’s the recipe:

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Just a note to everyone. We’re doing special holiday sales here at the factory. Normally we don’t let the public in the factory here. However we’re nearly finished the last of our large shipments for the holidays to retailers. So we’ll be able to let people come here to pick up bulk chocolate for dipping or cooking or our award winning bars for gifts or to eat yourself.

Our factory is a fairly nondescript grey cinderblock building off the freeway in Orem, UT. Here’s our address.

496 S 1325 W
Orem, UT 84058
801-655-1996

We would ask that you only come between 10:00 – 4:00 as things get a little busy the end of the day with shipments.

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An other week an other new bar. Once again we don’t quite yet have our professional photography done yet. So we haven’t put this bar up on our ordering website yet.

We’ve named our new bar Dos Rios and it is a very, very special bar. Art discovered these beans and was amazed at their unique flavor. They reminded him of the bergamot orange from Italy. We were very worried when we made our test batch of chocolate to test the beans. We weren’t sure those incredibly unique flavors would come out. They did. We then used some special techniques to bring out all these natural flavors of the beans in the finished chocolate we’ve made. The final chocolate is extremely complex with a rich chocolate flavor, distinct bergamot orange notes and a hint of spice. We think you’ll agree this is a chocolate like none other you’ve tasted. And all the flavors are completely natural to the beans we’ve used. Nothing else has been added except a tiny amount of vanilla and some white cane sugar.

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We haven’t put them up on our ordering site yet. (We’re still awaiting photos of the bars.) For all of you who regularly read our blog you can order our latest new bar now. This is an incredible bar and most of those we’ve done tastings with say it is among our best – many putting it on par with our Montanya and Madagascar bars. Continue reading…

Sorry for the shortage of posts the past few weeks. We’ve been really busy getting ready for Christmas and going to chocolate shows. We were at the Los Angeles Chocolate Salon last week. They just announced the awards. We were humbled to have won for best dark chocolate, best dark chocolate bar, best milk chocolate, best milk chocolate bar, best artisan chocolatier and best in Salon.

Thanks to everyone who came out to see us and got to sample our new bars. We’ll have an announcement on them very soon here.

Hello from Ecuador Chocolate Lovers :

I am in Ecuador right now. We have a new chocolate — it is called Guayas and it is named after the Guayas region in Ecuador. Yes, you heard that right — Ecuador. Our new chocolate is our first chocolate that we have made from cocoa beans from Ecuador. How does it taste? Really really good. So good in fact that I’ve been flown here to speak at a agricultural fair — which is happening later today.

One of the most important things that I have done while in Ecuador is to present our chocolate to the people who grew the cocoa beans we used. It was a really special occasion. A few tents were set up as was a hamburger stand that gave away free hamburgers, hotdogs and drinks. This was a very special occasion. Up until this point, I had only shared our new chocolate with close friends, family, and a few members of the media. This special occasion was the occasion I had been carefully saving the chocolate for. I wanted the very first public release of this chocolate to be the farmers themselves who worked so hard to grow the cocoa that went into making such a beautiful chocolate. I gave a speech talking to the farmers about the importance about how it was so beautiful to see each of them and their children and the beautiful history of cocoa and how their ancestors have been growing cocoa for over 1,000 years and hopefully, this can continue. I spoke of how I know they take great pride in their cocoa because I see it in how they grow their trees and take care of their plantations. And I spoke of preserving their fine flavored cocoa — Nacional — which is their heritage that they can share with the world.

I have also visited a number of chocolate factories and cocoa processing facilities. I have been greeted with open arms and really been treated well. The people of Ecuador are wonderful and they truly care about their cocoa. I can’t wait until I get back so I can spend some time writing about the wonderful time that I had visiting with the farmers and spending time on the plantation. Today though, we will be visiting some of the indigenous people outside of Quito and then attending the agricultural fair where I will be speaking. Wish me luck!

ABC News has up a story on Chocolate and health. If you’ve followed chocolate and health stories a lot will be familiar.

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No, not what you think. In fact heart attack survivors who eat chocolate two or more times per week cut their risk of dying by about three times.

According to the study author, the effect was specific to chocolate — we found no benefit to sweets in general.” Likely the effect was due to the high anti-oxidants.

So dark chocolate is the way to go and if you have to eat dark chocolate why not get the good stuff?

Sorting and Cleaning the Beans

Last week we showed how we make chocolate here at Amano in terms of the grinding. This week we want to show how we roast our beans and winnow them.

The grinding of cacao nibs into chocolate tends to get all the attention. Very few people pay close attention to the roasting and winnowing. In fact many companies don’t even do their own roasting and winnowing! However it really is a crucial step in developing the flavor of chocolate. The temperature you roast at has a significant, perhaps one of the most significant, affects on the final chocolate flavor. Likewise the hard husk of the cacao bean, if not removed, will create an “off” flavor that can’t easily removed. Removing as much of the chaff as possible is crucial for maintaining the proper flavor development. To compensate for having chaff in the final product some use a heavy roast to disguise the flavor. But that destroys a lot of the subtle flavors we love to find in chocolate.

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Someone asked for nutritional information on our chocolate. Our nutritional information is on the side of every bar of our Amano Chocolate. I’ll put this up in our main web site but I wanted to put it here as well.

Many people have asked us about doing chocolate tastings. Chocolate is a wonderful food because there are so many subtle flavors in each bite. Much like fine wine fine chocolate has a unique flavor profile that is determined by genetics, growing conditions, fermentation, roasting and other processing techniques. Knowing a little bit about the main flavors of each bar can help you enjoy the experience as the chocolate melts on your tongue. With each shipment of chocolate we always include a short tasting guide. (You can also download a pdf of the tasting guide) Now we don’t list every flavor of each bar but we try to hit the major ones.

We’ve also found that tasting wheels are tremendously useful for tasting chocolate. These have long been used with wine and cheese tastings. As best we can determine Jean Luca of Domori Chocolate introduced their use into chocolate tastings.

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We’ve put up a short little video at YouTube of us making chocolate. We also have some photos of our chocolate making.

We’ll have more pictures and videos over the next few weeks. Continue reading…