About the Nibs :

A few hours east of Caracas on the coast of Venezuela is the region of Barlovento. Famous for their drums and African slave heritage, many families have been farming cacao here for several hundred years. The most famous cocoa bean from this region is Carenero Superior. These nibs are made from Barlovento's most famous bean.

Carenero Superior cocoa provides a balanced richness in flavor not found in many other varieties of cocoa beans. They truly make beautiful nibs. The nibs produced from these beans are beautifully rich with well balanced fruit notes that are a wonderful accompaniment to many dishes.

We roast the Carenero Superior cocoa beans in our antique ball roaster, then remove the husks in our vintage winnowing machine. As soon as the nibs come from the winnowing machine, we quickly seal them in high-barrier, foil-lined bags, to trap the fine flavors inside. We do this ourselves to provide you with the highest quality and freshest cocoa nibs possible.

Founder, Head Chocolate Maker
Amano Artisan Chocolate

Professional chefs and home cooks alike have requested the cocoa nibs that we use to create our award winning chocolate. Roasted pieces of cocoa bean, nibs are crunchy like a nut but with the beautiful rich flavor of chocolate. Nibs are the perfect highlight for a wide number of dishes. Incredibly flavorful, we use them to make our chocolate with but you can use them in salads, cookies, brownies, ice cream, creme brulee, coffee, or a host of other recipes. Please feel free to share your recipes with us!

East of Caracas is "Barlovento" — an area for its Carenero Superior cocoa. These Carenero Superior nibs provide a deep chocolate flavor, yet are fruity and well rounded. They are perfect in your favorite dishes or as a chocolaty snack.

Presentation:

Our goal is to provide you the most perfectly roasted and freshest nibs possible. Our exacting standards demand no less.

Unlike nibs that are roasted and winnowed in foreign countries, transported over the open waters, only to be repackaged long after having gone stale, we roast and winnow our nibs ourselves. Our perfectly roasted nibs are packaged literally within hours (or less) of the time the beans are roasted. This traps all that roasty-chocolaty goodness inside.

We do not stop there; our nibs are packed in a gloss black high barrier foil laminated bags protecting the precious nibs inside from light, moisture, and oxygen. This provides you the ultimate in taste, crunch, and overall freshness.

The gloss black bags also have a luxurious appearance, gold border, and original gold framed photograph that only serves as a prelude to the quality of the nibs inside.

Photographer: Art Pollard

About the Artist:

The photographs used for the cocoa nib bags were taken by Amano's founder and chocolate maker in chief, Art Pollard. When Art graduated from school, he was only a few classes shy of a photography major (among other majors). This is particularly unusual, since Art never applied for "majors only" program. Art studied under John Telford (who worked under Ansel Adams and with the likes of Cole Weston, Eliot Porter, and Irving Penn), Val Brinkerhoff, and Stefan Halburg.

As Art travels the world hunting for the very best cocoa beans with which to make Amano's chocolate, he is able to put his photography skills to use to document his trips and share his photographs with the dedicated fans of Amano's chocolate.

Artist Website: http://www.AmanoChocolate.com

Ingredients:

Roasted Cocoa Beans

Our Single Origin Guarantee:

All of our single origin nibs are backed up with our "Single Origin Guarantee" so that you know that we have only used beans from Barlovento Region of Venezuela to create these incredible cocoa nibs.