Chuao Reserve Dark Chocolate
Ocumare Handcrafted Dark Chocolate
Dos Rios Handcrafted Dark Chocolate
Amano Artisan Chocolate is an American company founded and owned by Clark Goble and Art Pollard, located in Orem, Utah. They use vintage chocolate-making equipment and their products are made in small batches. Like regional cheeses and Old Country wines, their chocolates are unique: each comes from beans obtained from specific locations, and at present, they do not make blended chocolates.
Chuao Reserve Dark Chocolate is made from beans obtained from the Chuao area of Venezuela. It, like the other chocolates reviewed here, is 70% cacao. The texture is hard and somewhat brittle, as one expects from a good dark chocolate; the mouth feel is firm. The flavor is a good, strong cocoa with hints of blueberries and plum, with a slight molasses aftertaste. (The tasting notes also claim blackberries, coffee and almonds, but I didn’t detect those.) The flavor is rich, with just enough sugar to moderate the bitterness, but not enough to register any sweetness except in the aftertaste.
Ocumare Handcrafted Dark Chocolate is also from Venezuela, from Ocumare de la Costa on the central coast. Again, the texture is hard, firm in the mouth, but a bit chewy. There’s an almost buttery feel to it. The flavor of bitter chocolate is very pronounced, with hints of blueberry and a slightly sweet aftertaste. The scent is slightly musky and very rich.
Dos Rios Handcrafted Dark Chocolate Is from the Dominican Republic. The texture is typical of Amano chocolates, but lacks the buttery feel of the Ocumare. Although the makers claim tastes of bergamot, cinnamon and cloves, I didn’t find a lot of resonance in this one, although there is a slight hint of bergamot, and again there is a bit of a molasses aftertaste. The proportion of sugar to chocolate is very good, just enough to cut the bitterness. The scent was barely detectable.
The bars come in very striking slim boxes (one of my coworkers saw these in my bag and thought someone had given me perfume), graced with pictures of original paintings on the front and with descriptions of the origins on the back. Amano is toward the upper end of the chocolates I’ve experienced lately. They’ve also won a host of awards, both in the U.S. and in Europe. You can buy these and their other chocolates directly through their Web site.
