OREM, Utah — To the members in the Oakhills 4th Ward, Art Pollard is simply the ward librarian, a nice man with a nice wife and two young sons.Most have no clue he's a chocolate maker who in just three years has made a name for himself and his company — Amano Artisan Chocolate — in the world of fine chocolate.The Mormon's chocolate is being used in recipes by the world's top chefs, and he commands respect among world chocolatiers.__IMAGE2__Amano Artisan Chocolate was recently named the "best dark," "best milk" and "best in salon" chocolate at the 2009 San Francisco Salon. The Academy of Chocolate in London awarded Pollard a gold medal, the highest award given to an American company for bean-to-bar dark chocolate.The long list of awards the past three years includes "most luxurious," "most gifted chocolatier" and "outstanding new product."But Pollard is most interested in creating a personal best. His chocolate is handmade in small batches that are roasted, winnowed, ground and rolled in antique machines he's imported from around the world. For him, it's an art.The results are sold for $7 to $9 a bar in speciality shops and fine restaurants. (They're available at the BYU bookstore, Liberty Heights Fresh, Tony Caputo's and the Sundance resort.)"This is not your mass-produced chocolate, thank goodness," he said. "I'm a purist. I do this because I love chocolate. I love everything about it."A friend in the industry recently brought him word of a new cocoa bean with a unique orange/cinnamon/clove flavor, one Pollard hopes to have available as a bar by Christmas."You are the one chocolate maker in the world who would treat these with respect," the friend told Pollard.That pleased him."I appreciate the fact that people are enjoying my chocolate," he said. "It is nice doing something that makes people really happy."Next month, he's being flown by the Ecuadorian government to talk to local farmers about quality cocoa-bean production. They recognize what he's bringing to their country with his business.__IMAGE3__He pays top dollar for quality product and buys his cocoa beans only from farms in Venezuela, New Guina, Madasgascar, Ecuador and Ghana that care for their beans in a manner that makes for good, rich flavor.That includes hand-harvesting and hand-splitting the bean pods and taking them through a carefully monitored fermenting and drying process."They don't grow like apples on a tree. The white flowers grow off the sides of the trunks and branches," Pollard said. "Only one in 100 flowers turns into a cocoa-bean pod."His refining process is a step-by-step methodology based on taste and results. Pollard won't skip any part of it or boost one step just to cut costs or save time.While others may roast their beans longer to burn off bitterness or use a lot of vanilla to make up for a lack of flavor, he follows a strict timetable and only throws a "couple of vanilla beans" in for flavoring. He limits the pure-cane-sugar content to 30 percent.He won't ship chocolate in the latter part of the week because it might end up sitting in a hot warehouse on a weekend.He and partner David C. Goble — a fellow BYU graduate — haven't invited outside investors into the company because Pollard doesn't want to have to answer to anyone but himself. They use profits from their software company to support the chocolate business."If it's good, I take all the credit. If it's bad, I accept all the blame," he said.Recently on a trip to a remote village farm in the Ocumare Valley in Venezuela, he was showing the farmers the difference between good and bad chocolate. He hauled around a small ice truck and samples that he gave to the farmers, some of whom had never tasted the final products.One farmer told him the Amano chocolate was like a river."Like a river? I said," recalls Pollard."It takes you on a journey to nice places and flowers," the farmer replied."That made me want to cry," Pollard said. "That's what makes it worth it."
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