Amano Artisan Chocolate 3oz Dark Chocolate Bar (Guayas 70%)

• About this item.
• Tasting Notes: Rich chocolate flavor, green bannana, blackberry, smoke, cedar, molasses (Note, these are natural flavors of the cocoa beans we use and the chocolate -- not added flavors.).

Flavor Name:Guayas River Basin We created this award winning chocolate 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 also very complex in flavor. Its flavor notes are floral and sublty berry notes. They are reminicent of blackberry,spice and green banana. We created this bar using our hand restored antique machinery and our own touch of love. This chocolate shows the beauty in flavor that can be achieved using Ecuador's especially flavorful cocoa. Recent Awards: Silver at the 2016 Academy of Chocolate Awards Winner at the 2012 Good Food Awards 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 ations up river from Guayaquil that preserve pure Nacional cocoa. I used the cocoa from these ations 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.