Q: What made you decide to feature Amano for this year’s Chocolate Festival and how is Amano different from other craft chocolate makers?A: Amano is the most award winning American chocolate maker ever. The amount and quality of the awards they have won make this statement indisputable in a category where there always seems to be dispute. Not on this point. Amano was part of the first wave of craft chocolate makers in the US. When they got started, there was only about 14 other chocolate makers including giants like Hershey’s. Now, there are hundreds.
Amano has a unique advantage in sourcing as they do not buy cacao through the usual channels open to most small craft chocolate makers. Art often travels to origin and combs through the jungle to find unique origins and sources directly from the farms. In this way he is able to find very uncommon and rare cacao that no one else has. Amano’s chocolate making style is one of a kind. On the scale from loud brash American to sophisticated European, Amano achieves what makes each style great without sacrifice.
Art is widely recognized around the world as one of the world’s top experts in all things chocolate. In the global chocolate community, he is revered.