Éclat Chocolate, easily one of the best chocolatiers in PA, known throughout Chester County and well beyond for its incredible technique- and quality-driven, European-style chocolates, has just released a new collaboration bar with New York State-based Fruition Chocolate Works. Both of these leading artisan chocolate makers leveraged their skills and creativity to create, Noe Bar, which spotlights a specific farmer, Noe Vasquez, a cocoa bean grower in Peru.
The elegant, sumptuous black-and-gold packaging belies the beautiful 80% dark bar inside, a perfect cross of Nacional and Criollo varieties of cocoa bean (as tested and verified by the USDA). These types of beans are notoriously difficult to grow and have only a one-day harvest window, due to the unusually large size of the beans and the cocoa pod’s thin husk. In fact, this variety has never been offered for sale as chocolate — just four 50-kg. bags of these rare beans were found during a sourcing trip that the Éclat team took to Peru. As you can imagine, the Noe Bars, themselves, are also quite limited, and will only be available through select grocers and cafes (such as DiBruno Bros. and Vernick Coffee Bar in Philadelphia), as well as Éclat Chocolate’s and Fruition Chocolate Works’ retail shops and online stores.
Product collaborations are nothing new to Éclat; owner and head chocolatier Christopher Curtin has worked with many other companies in his 20 years in the industry. Curtin has worked with other PA-based companies, like Victory Brewing Co. and Chef Jose Garces, as well as global brands, like Chef Eric Riper of Le Bernadin and Anthony Bourdain. Curtin says that this specific collabo with Fruition was exciting because “it allowed us to combine our styles, as we’re a bit more Old World, and they’re a bit more modern.”
If you can find Noe Bar, pick up a few, because once the bars are gone, they are gone for good! For more info on Éclat and Fruition, visit their websites (here and here) and follow along on their tantalizing Instagram pages (here and here)!
Visit Éclat Chocolate at 24 S. High St. in West Chester; phone: (610) 692-5206.
- Photos: Dish Works
