Amano Cardamom Black Pepper Dark Chocolate

yes, pricey, but worth it;comparisons are odious, but whereas I would happily try other types of Amano chocolates, I don't like Endangered Species at all, and the two show up on lists of the ten best chocolates, so, we can only conclude that there will be as many opinions on chocolate as there are people sampling it

Good tasting chocolate, but thought would taste the flavor of the cardamom better. Is a good bar of chocolate was disappointed that flavors do not hit your pallet more.

Decadent and delicious, but also healthy choice with black pepper and cardamom.Would order again and try other dark chocolate types.

A bar of artisan chocolate is generally meant to be savored. You don't munch on it like a Hershey's bar - you let it melt in your mouth so that you can enjoy all of the chocolate's subtleties.I feel that when this bar was being made, those two ideas got shoved together into one.The chocolate on its own is fine. It's very good, and the orange and lavender advertised on the box work well together when you savor the candy. However, I did not get very much of the cardamom or black pepper tastes that are promised on the packaging, at least as compared to the orange-lavender blend, as previously stated.In any case, savoring the candy is not easy or enjoyable to do when the chocolate melts away just to leave you with a sprinkle of hard sugar crystals in your mouth. These "crunchy bits," as the box calls them, add nothing to the chocolate, and in fact detract from the experience. They're too hard to comfortably bite down on, which seems to be the intent of their inclusion (and if you do bite you're missing out on the flavors of the chocolate). However, they don't melt with the chocolate, which, as stated, leaves you with a bunch of uncomfortable sugar crystals in your mouth.I do not recommend this chocolate. The chocolate itself is fine, but it doesn't taste like a spice-based chocolate as far as I can tell, and the sugar crystals only make it worse.If you're here looking for a good spice-based chocolate I'd recommend jcoco's "boharat" flavor, which reminds me of a spiced cookie in terms of its taste.

If I were going away for a long time and could only take one kind of chocolate with me, this would be it. (Scharffen Berger's Nibby Bar, pre-aquisition, would be a contender.) The chocolate itself is a perfect balance of bitter, sweet, and fatty, while the cardamom and black pepper provide a lovely aromatic complexity without being overpowering. If you've ever accidentally bitten into a cardamom pod in a dish of Indian rice pullao, you know how intense that spice can be, but in tiny amounts it is just heavenly. Similarly for black pepper, of course, and somehow the two spices complement and countebalance each other very well indeed. Give this chocolate bar a try.

Wow! Love this chocolate. Just finished the last of a bar and am ready to buy more. I was looking on amazon for some good quality cocoa powder when this popped up--with no reviews! So I thought I'd offer the first. I buy it at my local grocery store (which has a really great variety of artisan chocolates) and this is one of my very favorites. Has a nice hint of cardamom (not overpowering), and the black pepper is very subtle. The chocolate they use--Dos Rios--is outstanding with it's natural notes of bergamot. This is one that keeps finding its way in my Christmas stocking ('cause I put it there), and on my birthday list, or as a Valentine's treat, and as a Father's Day present, or a Labor Day indulgence, and any other excuse to splurge on good chocolate.