'A' Is for Amano
Editor's note: I've got another contributor to introduce you to here on Serious Eats. Say hello to Emily Stone, proprietor of the blog Chocolate in Context. Yep, you guessed it. She'll be along periodically to fill us in on what's going on in Chocolate World. Enjoy! —Adam
Would you buy something called Lextek Chocolate? Well, I might, if it were made with expertly handled cacao beans from Venezuela's precious criollo trees and Madagascar's carefully tended 100-year-old stock. But not everyone is so easily wooed.
So when Utah-based Art Pollard and Clark Goble (not Gable) founded a chocolate company with the overflow of profits from their search-engine-software business Lextek, they settled on a sexier moniker, Amano. In addition to coming first in a virtual telephone book of artisanal chocolate producers (one slot above Italian-owned Amedei and safely 21 letters above the gold standard, Valrhona), "Amano" has a multitude of meanings.
- "By hand," Italian, Spanish
- "They love," Italian
- "I flow it," Portuguese
- "Heavenly field," Japanese
- "Of rain," Japanese
On sale online and at more and more retail outlets since becoming available to the public in March, Amano chocolate has taken top awards at the New York Fancy Food Show and the San Francisco International Chocolate Salon. It's also garnered accolades from Paris-based dessert maven David Lebovitz and Karletta Moniz's The Art of Tasting Chocolate in San Francisco. Amano's newest single-origin chocolate bar is Cuyagua. The name belongs to a Venezuelan valley—though it's not a bad title for a search engine, either.
About the author: Emily Stone, proprietor of Chocolate in Context, is a chocolate enthusiast, itinerant traveler, and a lover of literature who lives in Pittsburgh. She's been a movie reviewer, a reproductive health researcher, and an independent bookstore owner. Her writing has appeared in the magazines Budget Travel, Travel + Leisure, and Time Out New York, as well as on the websites World Hum and Epicurious.View other entries from Serious Chocolate.
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5 Comments:
Welcome to SE! I am someone who really enjoys her chocolate but admit to knowing very little about it. I look forward to you sharing with us your knowledge & recommendations!
JEP at 6:33PM on 09/10/07
Glad you highlighted this little chocolate maker. I've been lucky enough to be able to try all their stuff here in Portland, OR, at Cacao and think it's pretty darn good. It doesn't sell as well as it should, from what I've seen, but their blended bars are some of the better blended bars I've tried. They're very well-balanced. I think it's comparable to Valrhona, Cluizel, Pralus, Amedei, and other top makers. Definitely a step up from Dagoba, Scharffenberger, El Rey, etc.
Funny thing, I was on a philosophy email list with Goble many years ago and still remember him as being very inquisitive. I'm sure that's helped in their venture. I hope they do well. They're putting out a very praiseworthy product and Utah can use something tasty besides Crown Burger's pastrami burger.
extramsg at 11:57PM on 09/10/07
btw, I don't know why I said they were blended bars. They're all single origin. I was thinking that they were blended from others chocolate and I was impressed to learn only a couple weeks ago that they were actual chocolate makers, conching their own stuff.
extramsg at 12:04AM on 09/11/07
Hi Emily, I enjoy reading your chocolate blog. I tasted some of Amano's chocolates at the SF Chocolate Salon earlier in the summer. Amano is definitely a hidden treasure that deserves more attention!
dana z at 4:08PM on 09/11/07
I, too, finally had a chance to try and buy Amano bars at the SF Choco Salon. Lovely and amazing! Now I wish I had a good local source. And I can't wait to try the Cuyagua.
KateC at 5:23PM on 09/11/07