The other day, we told you our impressions of Naia Gelateria (nutshell: pretty good overall; you should particularly dig it if you enjoy having a ton of varieties to choose from). We wanted to know a little more about this Bay Area company, so we approached Trevor Morris, the company's general manager. He's been running the company since 2003, and had prior experience in the restaurant industry before that. He took the time to answer a few questions:

1. You guys have some crazy/innovative flavors. Do you have a personal favorite? What's a perrenial best-seller? Are there any flavors you've tried that just haven't worked out?

Our best seller is Dark Chocolate. Each of our stores has different flavors that are popular. Black Sesame is very popular in Berkeley but is frowned upon in Walnut Creek where Espresso is popular.

Because gelato is so low in fat it is very easy to work with if you know what you are doing and there are few flavors we haven't been able to make. We are serious about our ingredients though and we don't use anything artificial.

2. What's something about the gelateria business that an industry outsider just couldn't know?

I think people would be surprised to know that many gelaterias in Italy and here in the US make their gelato from cans of goo, bags of powders and bottles of syrup. Anytime you hear, "We import our ingredients from Italy" that's what they mean. We have gotten away from making our gelato like that.

Examples of Naia's ingredients and Trevor's dip into the blogging world after the jump