Easter has just passed and, in all likelihood, there are still bits of chocolate eggs lying around our homes… But this year, the most expensive chocolate egg (with no surprise inside), which sold at auction for 7,000 pounds, is a creation by London-based chocolatier William Curley and weighs around 50 kg. The egg was made largely using Italian chocolate, specifically chocolate from Amedei Toscana, an artisanal chocolate house in Pontedera which, in just over three decades, has won the most Golden Bean awards at the Academy of Chocolate in London.
Cecilia Tessieri Rabassi: the world’s first female maître chocolatier
The company was founded by a woman: Cecilia Tessieri Rabassi, born in 1967, the world’s first female maître chocolatier, who, in 1990, opened an artisan workshop in Pontedera (PI) together with her brother Alessio.
But what exactly does ‘maître chocolatier’ mean? She makes this clear herself in an interview with “Comunicaffè”:In the French sense, the maître is the only chocolatier who selects the beans and processes them into a finished product. Chocolatiers, on the other hand, only process the product. Since its origins, the maître has been the one who took care of the raw material, a mix of oenologist and agronomist.‘
Cecilia and her brother chose their maternal grandmother’s name for the brand and focused on researching and processing the best cocoa beans. Over the years, thanks to Cecilia’s talent, they have come to select and control entire production chains in Venezuela’s Chuao area, where the best cocoa in the world comes from.
Cocoa: a valuable food
‘With great cocoa, you can make great chocolate, and to value great chocolate means to value the cocoa beans and the work of the farmers in the countries where cocoa is grown’. Cecilia said in an interview with Marie Claire.
And she adds: ‘I have always had the idea that chocolate was a truly precious thing to discover, not trivial as it may have been in those days. This is my best and most vivid memory of chocolate.’
The chocolate of tomorrow
Two years ago, Cecilia sold the company to create her atelier, where she makes the ‘chocolate of tomorrow’, a chocolate that reveals its preciousness and value through new tasting methods and customised recipes.
Today, Amedei, headquartered in Pontedera, is and remains an excellence in quality artisan chocolate. It has won prestigious awards, produces 120 different products (including the award-winning Toscano black 70), has dozens of employees, has a revenue of millions of euros, and exports 55% of its production!
Congratulations to those who bring Italian talent and chocolate to the world!
Discover also Tuscany’s other Made in Italy outstanding products.