Akesson’s – Madagascar 75% with Wild Voatsiperifery Pepper

About the bar

The natural earthy and woody flavours of the wild Voatsiperifery pepper combine beautifully with the typically expressive notes of citrus and red berries to give this bar an exceptionally deep tasting experience. As the bar melts, a delicious aroma of cloves and cinnamon releases a gentle spicy heat.

About the maker

Bertil Åkesson is one of the true heroes of the bean-to-bar market. He has pioneered the direct sale of his single-estate beans to over 300 chocolate makers all over the world and has crafted his own range of award-winning bars. Born to a Swedish diplomat father and a French mother, Bertil grew up in Madagascar, where his family settled in the 1970s. His father established a number of cocoa and spice plantations on the island, which Bertil has since expanded.

Bars made with Bertil’s beans have won a long list of accolades and prizes all over the world, and this lively and expressive single-origin bar is no exception. Awards for this bar include Gold at the Great Taste Awards, Gold at the International Chocolate Awards, and Gold at the Academy of Chocolate Awards. This bar hails from Åkesson’s Ambolikapiky plantation in the celebrated cacao producing valley of Sambirano, northwest Madagascar, a favourite source of beans and spices for many of the world’s best chocolate makers and chefs.

Bertil grows much of his own pepper, often directly alongside his cocoa plants to protect them from the intense tropical sun. For this bar, however, Bertil has gone into the Madagascan forest to find the exceptionally rare wild pepper Voatsiperifery, meaning “fruits of the pepper vine”. The hand-picked fruits have been added to the chocolate to give it a wonderful pine forest aroma.

The name of this pepper is derived from the local Malagasy language where Voa means ‘the fruits’ and tsiperifery translates to ‘this pepper vine’. This incredibly rare and little known wild pepper comes from the fruit that only grow on the young, new grown shoots of the vine and are hand harvested in the wild by farmers only once a year

Allergens*

May contain milk, may contain nuts

Ingredients

Organic cocoa (min. 75%), organic cane sugar, pure organic cocoa butter (no vegetable fat), organic voatsiperifery pepper (2%)

*Allergen advice: We directly import, and purchase, all products from independent makers and have these shipped by our partner warehouse (which is not certified allergen-free), and so we cannot guarantee that any product will be allergen-free. Even where an allergen is not listed, products may have been produced, shipped, or stored in facilities which handle allergens.

If you would like further information about a specific product, please contact us on [email protected] or contact the maker directly.