Amano Artisan Chocolate: The Utah Physicist Who Started American Bean-to-Bar Before There Was a Name for It
When Art Pollard started making chocolate from the bean in Orem, Utah, in 2006, there were only a handful of people in the United States doing it, and there was not yet a name for what they did. Pollard had trained as a physicist and worked in software, and he came at chocolate the way an engineer comes at any problem: he bought old European machinery, some of it decades old, restored it, learned to run it by trial, and set about finding out what a single farm's beans tasted like made with care. The company he founded, Amano Artisan Chocolate, went on to collect more medals at the international chocolate competitions than almost any American maker, and it is still in Orem, still small, and still run the same way. This is the producer guide; our process piece explains the machines.
The founder
Pollard is the kind of maker who talks about roast curves and particle size the way other people talk about the weather, and his approach has been to control every variable and change one at a time. Amano roasts in small batches, refines on vintage equipment that he argues produces a smoother texture than modern machines, conches long, and ages the finished chocolate before molding. The name means "by hand" in Italian and Spanish, and it is meant literally. Pollard has also been a vocal advocate for paying cacao farmers well and for transparency about origin, before either was fashionable, and Amano's bars name the village or valley the beans came from rather than the country.
The origins
Ocumare Village, Venezuela, 70%. Ocumare de la Costa is a valley on Venezuela's Caribbean coast that has grown some of the world's most prized cacao for centuries, genetically close to the ancient Criollo types that our fermentation piece describes as delicate and quick to ferment. Amano's Ocumare has been winning medals since the company's first years: nutty, creamy, with plum and a faint smokiness, low in acidity and long in the finish. It is the bar for people who want depth without sharpness, and the one to open first.
Dos Rios, Dominican Republic, 70%. From a specific region of the Dominican Republic, and one of Amano's most decorated bars: bright and floral, with a bergamot-like citrus note that people swear is added and is not. It is an unusually perfumed chocolate for a plain two-ingredient bar, and tasted beside the Ocumare it shows how far two origins at the same percentage can sit from one another. Our tasting guide is built for exactly that comparison.
The flavored bars
Amano's flavored line adds one idea to a serious dark chocolate rather than covering a weak one, and the additions are the spices our spice harvest piece describes at their source.
Cardamom Black Pepper. Green cardamom's camphor-citrus perfume and the slow heat of black pepper in dark chocolate. The bar to serve after an Indian or Middle Eastern dinner, with a strong coffee.
Citrus. Dark chocolate with the oils of several citrus fruits. Bright and clean; the bar for a summer table or a no-bake dessert plate beside strawberries.
Raspberry Rose. Freeze-dried raspberry and rose in dark chocolate, a pairing that sounds like potpourri and tastes like a Persian pastry. The gift bar, and the one to bring to a table that thinks it does not like floral flavors.
The medals
Amano's wrappers carry the medals it has won at the Academy of Chocolate in London and the International Chocolate Awards, and the count runs into the dozens across the origins. For a small Utah factory to beat European houses with centuries of history at their own competitions, repeatedly, was one of the early signals that American bean-to-bar was serious, and it is the reason Amano appears in every history of the movement, including our own chocolate history. The medals are not the point of the bars, but they are a reliable shorthand for a customer standing at a shelf of unfamiliar names.
How to taste them
The two origins first, Ocumare then Dos Rios, with water between, to hear the difference between a Venezuelan valley and a Dominican one at the same percentage. Then the flavored bars, Citrus, then Cardamom Black Pepper, then Raspberry Rose, from brightest to most perfumed. Break for the snap, let a piece melt before chewing, and taste the Ocumare again at the end to see how much the flavored bars have reset the palate. Keep them cool and dry, away from the refrigerator and strong smells.
Why Amano matters
Three of the American makers on our shelf, Amano, Dandelion and Dick Taylor, tell the story of the movement in order: the engineer in Utah who started before the category had a name, the software founders in San Francisco who made it visible, and the woodworkers in Eureka who made it beautiful. Amano is the first chapter, and its Ocumare is still one of the best bars any of them make. The five bars are at 263 Josephine Street in Cherry Creek, Denver, and ship nationwide from theambrosianpantry.com, on the chocolate shelf beside the makers it made possible.
