Amano Artisan Chocolate: How Art Pollard Became a Chocolate Perfectionist

Art Pollard at the Utah-based Amano Artisan Chocolate factory — Art Pollard at the factory photo credit Amano Chocolate

According to Art Pollard, Orem, Utah-based Amano Artisan Chocolate opened in 2006, after plenty of chocolate-making trial and error. That could just be a perfectionist talking, but the company has evolved far beyond an initial handful of machines to become the nation’s most highly awarded chocolate maker. Today the next generation is getting involved with Pollard’s adult son, Aaron becoming an Amano chocolate maker, and taking a leadership role in the company.

History of Amano Chocolate

Pollard’s route to becoming a nationally known chocolatier was circuitous. He grew up between Los Alamos, New Mexico, and Seattle. Influenced by many New Mexico neighbors who were ex-‘Manhattan project guys,’ he wanted to design fusion reactors. Pollard also exercised his science muscles in the Brigham Young University physics department while visiting Utah relatives, and then at the University of Washington, after moving to Seattle with his dad.

Yet one taste of a German chocolate bar, while at BYU, presented a flavor explosion that led him to making chocolate. “It was the last thing my high school guidance counselor would have recommended,” he says.

Personally sources cacao beans in every bar

Art Pollard with cacao farmer photo courtesy of Amano Chocolate

Today one of the key differentiators of the Amano brand is that each luxury bar incorporates the most unique cocoa beans Pollard can find, and the company pays cacao suppliers nearly double the standard Fair Trade rate. Crafted in Micelli molds, Amano chocolate is gluten-free, all natural, vegan, and non-GMO. Read more about fair trade, direct trade and transparent trade.

Small, carefully controlled chocolate batches incorporate beans and ingredients from destinations that include Ocumare Village/Chuao, Venezuela, Guayas River Basin, Ecuador, and Dos Rios, Dominican Republic. These ‘unflavored’ chocolates provide a foundation from which to craft Amano’s flavored bars.

Flavored bars meet consumer demand

Each unflavored chocolate bar features cocoa beans and butter, pure cane sugar, and whole vanilla beans. One of his more recent flavored bars Citrus Mélange A Trois, along with Raspberry Rose, and Cardamom Black Pepper bars are especially popular among customers. But choosing which of the chocolate varieties to pair with these intriguing ingredients reflects the fact that every variety of chocolate has its own unique flavor.

Most flavored bars are 55% to 63% cocoa, after adding ingredients such as the freeze-dried raspberry powder and sugar bits in Raspberry Rose Bars. “It’s like cooking any other dish,” Pollard says. “You find flavor combinations that go together best. I want our base chocolate to enhance whatever other flavors may be present. I want to create the most luxurious experience I can, for the customer.”

This meticulous chocolatier admits it took all his skills to do justice to Dos Rios beans, which incorporate 70 percent cocoa with lovely vanilla undertones. This chocolate provides a foundation for Pollard’s Cardamom Black Pepper bar, which has a delightful crunch and perfectly balances these flavors against the vanilla.

“I fell in love with the flavor of cardamom and chocolate even before I launched Amano,” Pollard says. “I added the black pepper as a flavor enhancer – not as heat – to round things out as it would on a steak. Sugar bits make it nice and crunchy. It was a new flavor combination that nobody was doing at the time.”

The Raspberry Rose bar

The Raspberry Rose bar flavor profile arose from Pollard’s visit to Pierre Herme’s Paris bakery, where he purchased $70-worth of pastries and then sampled them in his tiny hotel room. “I was blown away by his Raspberry Rose Cheesecake and I swore over how good it was,” Pollard says. “My goal, ever since, is to make our chocolate so good that it makes people swear. It’s the ‘holy crap factor.’

“Citrus Mélange A Trois was more of a long-term project. I wanted little pieces of fruit leather in the chocolate bar. I thought of this maybe 12 years ago, but there were serious manufacturing problems with the pieces.

“Later I totally fell in love with yuzu as a fruit. Then I made an yuzu, tangerine and grapefruit combination with orange fruit leather after I found a different manufacturing company. And I have a lifetime supply of the leather.”

Tasting notes

As you open the interior cover of this bar, fresh citrus aroma emerges. Multi-faceted fruit flavor blends with rich, complex melt-in-your-mouth chocolate from Ecuador’s Guayas River Basin. Guayas River Basin chocolate also provides the base for the Raspberry Rose bar, and the Mango Chile bar whose subtle fruitiness complements chile flavor that lingers and intensifies.

Made with chocolate sourced from Ocumare (de la Coasta) Village, Venezuela, Japanese Sea Salt & Cocoa Nibs bars incorporate milk chocolate with the perfect amount of sea salt as nibs contribute subtle crunch.

Pollard strives for perfection with Amano packaging too. Each bar’s package incorporates a different piece of gorgeous cover art. “Every painting is an original commission, and a lot of the artists are actually fairly prominent-some of whom I have personal relationships with,” he says.

On the back of each bar, Pollard prints a short story depicting the creation of that flavor profile. “Every bar we’ve put out has been its own little bit of an adventure,” he says. “I think it’s important for people to understand what’s gone into it.”