Cooking For Engineers

[Cooking For Engineers]

I have to tell all of you about this contest that Amano Chocolate has going on. Amano makes the best single origin chocolates that I have ever tasted - each dark chocolate bar is distinct in flavor and highlights the flavors (fruitiness, richness, earthiness) that comes naturally to the cocoa produced in that region. Now, they running a contest to see who will win a year's supply of their excellent (and expensive) chocolate.

The only ingredients they use in the dark chocolate are cocoa beans, cane sugar, cocoa butter, and vanilla beans - all the different characteristics are brought out through their attention to the harvest, fermentation, roasting, and processing of the beans. In the end, the chocolate bar they produce is incredible - putting all other bars to shame. I love being able to pull out a couple of bars and have people taste the differences between the different bars with beans coming from different valleys and regions. The only downside is that a 2 ounce bar runs about $7 in stores when you can find it. (Because of how they source their cocoa and the seasonality of the crop, some Amano chocolate bars aren't available all the time.)

That's why this contest they are running is so cool. They are offering a year's supply of Amano Chocolate (actually, ten bars a month for a whole year) to one person who can guess the origin of their newest chocolate (which will be unveiled at the 56th Summer Fancy Food Show on June 27th). To help people guess where the cocoa is sourced from, they've provided this picture of the beans. Of the people who guess correctly, they will hold a drawing to see who the lucky person is.

Guess The Origin Contest at Amano Chocolate

[Katie]

I wanted to enter this, but being an engineer, I didn't want to just take a shot in the dark. What are some sources where I can learn about different types of cocoa beans, so I can figure out where these are from?

[Katie]

Never mind! It's already over. I see now this post was written a couple weeks ago, but it just showed up in my Google Reader just now.