Do the Flavors Detract from Amano Chocolate?

Today I'm going to share two more Amano Artisan Chocolate bars with you. These are from their Flavored and Inclusion lines that have added ingredients instead of simply relying upon the beans themselves and how they are processed to achieve their flavors. Flavored chocolate have been popular for decades now and we've covered a lot of them since 2009. These particular flavor combinations, Raspberry Rose and Cardamom Black Pepper are not variations we've seen before, so I am curious to try them out. I asked our resident raspberry lover to help me with them both; I'll put his opinions in italic font type if we differ. I was sent both 3 ounce bars for free in exchange for my sharing my honest experiences with you all here on this post; no other form of compensation was received.

Amano Raspberry Rose Bar

Let's begin with the floral and fruity in the Raspberry Rose Chocolate Bar. I got help from our Tea Acolyte with this bar because he is a raspberry fan, almost a fanatic you might say; his words will be in italics. The packaging under the box is identical to the previous Amano Artisan Chocolate bars we've written about. The primary scent was chocolate with a good amount of rose as the secondary fragrance. The chocolate is crunchy if you chew it and there are crystals left when you allow a piece to melt in your mouth. What those crystals are is unclear from the information on the back of the box. I think it was more sour tasting, which is how I think raspberry tastes but our Tea Acolyte thought they and the chocolate was both sweet and sour, the crystals are sweeter. He spent a lot of time trying to figure out the crystals, but we still disagreed. For me, this bar was best in terms of flavor when I let a piece melt in my mouth, but then the crystals were left and I wasn't a fan of that taste. For our Tea Acolyte, "it is evenly balanced, the chocolate is dark and the primary flavor. I must figure out these crystals!" At 55% I thought the chocolate was creamy and sweet over all, not bitter in any way. In the final analysis, he said "I like it," and gladly took the rest of the bar.

Amano Cardamom Black Pepper Bar

We'll end on the spicier side of chocolate with the Cardamom Black Pepper Chocolate Bar. I've had both spices before in other brands' chocolate but not together. This may be intense so I asked our Tea Acolyte to help me again because he's far more tolerant of spicy than I am; again his words will be in italics. This bar is 60% cacao so I expected it to be darker in flavor, but we tackle fragrance first after the basic break apart test. This bar broke more easily compared to the raspberry rose. I could see pieces of black pepper (I assume) along the break sections. As you can see in our photo, the bar itself looked a bit worse for wear and it is probably this extra bit of softness that allowed it to be banged up a bit in the wrapper and box. This time, our Tea Acolyte was impressed before he took a bite. I smell the cardamon and the black pepper immediately. That's an unusual combination. I, too could smell the spices almost above the chocolate. This bar also had the crunchy texture to it. It was not darker tasting than the previous bar, indeed, it was sweeter. An orange flavor came out when you let it melt in your mouth, the cardamom was a general fruity flavor regardless of how we ate it, the pepper was there but without heat. To quote our Tea Acolyte, It is like Earl Grey tea without the tea. I love Earl Grey so I love this.

Between the two flavored and inclusion bars, my favorite was the Cardamom Black Pepper not only because I'm not a huge raspberry fan but because it was smoother tasting and didn't have that heat that I can find distracting in spicy chocolates. Our Tea Acolyte preferred the Raspberry Rose because he loves raspberry more than Earl Grey tea. We both agreed these are good bars depending on your flavor preferences. The ingredients and overall care earn them Sacrament Status.