Product Details:

This chocolate was created exclusively with beans from the Guayas River flood-plain in Ecuador. Historically, these cocoa beans have been known as "Arriba" and have long been famous for their fine flavor. Arriba cocoa from Ecuador creates a chocolate that is rich and chocolately but is also very complex in flavor with flavor hints that are floral, and are reminicent blackberry, smokyness, spice. We have created this bar using our traditional machinery and our own touch of love. This chocolate shows the beauty in flavor that can be achieved using Ecuador's especially flavorful cocoa.

The Chocolate Maker's Notes:

Ecuador's native cocoa Nacional has been famous for centuries for its fine flavor.  When cocoa traders would come to the port of Guayaquil and ask where the best cocoa was to be found, they would be pointed "Arriba" or up river. I was very happy to find a small group of cocoa plantations up river from Guayaquil that preserve pure Nacional cocoa. I used the cocoa from these plantations to make this beautiful and incredibly flavorful chocolate.

Finding absolutely pure Nacional can be a difficult task. Many cocoa farmers have been talked into replacing their Nacional with a hybrid called CCN-51. CCN-51 has no Ecuadorian genetic roots and is a particularly insidious hybrid that rapidly depletes the soil and is rapidly replacing fine flavored cocoa in the few countries that grow quality cocoa.  By ensuring this chocolate is CCN-51 free, we are able to present to you the pure flavor of Ecuador's cocoa and heritage and help preserve fine flavored cocoa.

In addition to the final flavor of this special chocolate, what really makes me proud is that before we released this chocolate to the public or our retailers, I packed up a collection of bars and flew to Guayaquil and traveled up-river to the homes of farmers who grew the cocoa beans we used.  There, along with my friends in Ecuador, we threw a party for the farmers with free food and drinks. We shared the chocolate with the very farmers who grew the cocoa. It touches my heart that the farmers were able to taste this chocolate first.  It was a beautiful experience seeing the pride that they took in their farms, their trees, their cocoa. The faces of those humble farmers and their beautiful children will always be with me and I can only hope that this chocolate  does honor and justice to their hard work and their love for their beautiful cocoa trees.

Art Pollard
Founder, Head Chocolate Maker

Inscription on the Back of the Bar :

From a fertile Guayas River floodplain comes the pride of Ecuador -- The Nacional cacao bean, grown nowhere else in the world. In seclusion farmers have cultivated a wild cacao into a balanced expression of untamed nature and sophistication. We handroast this bean, and, using our antique stone grinder, 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.

Amano Artisan Chocolate is dedicated to reviving the art of making fine chocolate from the bean. We craft our chocolate in small batches only from the finest cocoa beans, pure cane sugar, and whole vanilla beans. I hope you enjoy our chocolate.

Presentation:

Each bar is individually foil wrapped and beautifully boxed. Each box is printed on high grade paper providing a luxurious feel in the hand. The "Food of the Gods " painting is an original piece of artwork by artist Carlos Serbia commissioned by Amano Artisan Chocolate specifically for the Ocumare 70% Dark chocolate. The borders and details have been gently highlighted with gold foil accenting creating a stunning presentation making it suitable for gifts as well as your own enjoyment.

Artist:Douglas Aagard

About the Artwork:

I approach art the same way I've approached any venture. Knowing I have much to learn, working to improve, and striving to be the best I can possibly be. The big difference is that art is the only occupation I have undertaken that I could entirely give myself to. To fully invest myself physically, mentally and spiritually.

I search for the spirit or emotion a subject evokes in me, and strive to find a way to put it on canvas. It's often a magical process. I love being an artist. There are so many wonderful discoveries that are made through close scrutiny of the land whose wonder I would have totally missed had it not been for my profession.

Artist Bio:Douglas Aagard is a Utah landscape painter known for his use of color, texture and light. His subject matter is as varied as the Utah landscape itself. From the high mountain pines and aspens to sage and cedars with a whole lot of farmland in between. He lives in central Utah in a rural community with his wife and three children. He enjoys fishing, camping, working in his garden, and spending time with his family. He also enjoys volunteering at the Senior Citizen Center and working with Boy Scouts. He has been a full time artist for six years, and in 2007 Douglas built himself a wonderful new studio. He was featured in Southwest Art in Best of the West Nov. 2005 and 2006, and was featured in Western Art Collector Magazine Nov. 2007.

Artist Website: http://www.douglasaagard.com/

Ingredients:

Cocoa beans, Pure cane sugar, Cocoa butter, Whole vanilla beans.

Our Single Origin Guarantee:

All of our single origin chocolate is backed up with our "Single Origin Guarantee" so that you know that we have only used beans from Ocumare de la Coasta, Venezuela to create this incredible bar.