The chocolate manufacturer L’Artigiano di Gardini, which is located in Forli, Italy, is producing a number of single origin chocolate bars, chocolate praline collections, nougats, and high-quality chocolate bars with pistachios, raisins, puffed rice, almonds, pine nuts, ginger, candied oranges, cocount, pearls of chocolate, dried fruit, or almond sweetmeat.
L’Artigiano is also producing eight types of chocolate with “sweet salt of Cervia”, one with olive oil, and one with liquorice. I love the combination of chocolate and liquorice, and this chocolate bar was excellent. It was composed by a milk chocolate containing 38% cacao solids, liquorice root, and some salt.
Editor’s Rating:
Type: Specialty chocolate bars.
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Chocolate tasting, Specialty chocolates italy
Toscano Black 63% was the second chocolate produced by Amedei in Italy. It was created from a blend of various kinds of cacao. It has a very rich pleasant flavor, strong fruity, with a nice bitter aftertone. One of the best bittersweet chocolates on the market.
Amedei Toscano Black 63% received an Academy of Chocolate Gold Award 2008, a well-deserved prize.
Editor’s rating:
Type: Bittersweet specialty chocolate.
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Hal Chocolate brands, Chocolate tasting, Specialty chocolates italy
Lattenero 70% is a milk chocolate containing 70% cocoa solids made by Slitti in Tuscany, Italy. Lattenero is available with 45%, 51%, 62% and 70% cocoa solids and contains cocoa mass, sugar, whole milk powder, and natural vanilla. No lecithin is added.
I tried the 70% milk chocolate. The flavor is fairly bitter with a strong, long lasting, bitter aftertaste. It lacks the sweetness usually associated with milk chocolates. I didn’t like it; bittersweet chocolates without milk taste much better.
Editor’s Rating:
Type: Bittersweet premium chocolate bar.
Flavor: 
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Hal Chocolate brands, Chocolate tasting italy
The Italian chocolate festival “Eurochocolate” will be held in Perugia, Italy, October 13-21, 2007. Last year’s event had more than one million visitors. The festival includes dozens of events related to the “food of the gods”, e.g. exhibitions, laboratories, internships, cooking classes, tasting, expositions, banquets, celebrations, and Eurochocolate Awards. For more information see the Eurochocolate website, which unfortunately is mostly in Italian.
Hal Chocolate events italy
In a shop in Seattle I found an unusual chocolate: “Salt Tasting Chocolate” from Bruco (Italy). It contains minimum 74% cacao solids, so it is a quite bitter chocolate. It is somewhat hard and appears dry, probably because a fairly low amount of cacao butter is added during production. A higher content of cacao butter would have given a softer texture. The addition of salt in a bittersweet chocolate bar was a new experience. Often a pinch of salt will enhance and enrich the flavor of a chocolate cake or dessert, which also happened in this case for a chocolate bar.
Editor’s Rating:
Type: Specialty chocolate bar.
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[Photo: Hal]
Hal Chocolate brands, Chocolate tasting, Specialty chocolates italy