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West Chester’s Éclat Chocolate Teams Up With La Colombe

Eclat's line of Obsession Bars.
Eclat’s line of Obsession Bars. Photo: Courtesy Eclat Chocolate

Christopher Curtin, master chocolatier behind West Chester’s Éclat Chocolate — yeah, the same chocolates that Eric Ripert recently told NBC Philly’s 10 Show he eats everyday — is teaming up with La Colombe to produce two new signature chocolate bars that will be sold exclusively at the Philly-based coffee roasters retail locations. You might recall a few weeks ago we told you that Curtin had developed a line of signature chocolate bars for Jose Garces. “The reason why I started doing these projects is, it forces me to think outside the box,” Curtin told Grub Street. “If I do chocolates just for myself, I pretty much know how I’m going to do it. If I’m working with another chef, like Jose Garces, and we start talking about his philosophy on cooking, it forces to think differently and create something I normally wouldn’t have thought of doing.”

Both La Colombe bars are made with the coffee roaster’s Nizza blend. One is a 70 percent blend of dark chocolate with coarsely ground chunks of coffee in the bar, and other mimics a “morning style” coffee, with a 35 percent milk chocolate with smaller bits of ground coffee beans.

In addition to his recent collaborations, Curtin is currently one of only five chocolatiers in the U.S. to be working with the ultra-rare Fortunato No.4 cacao, a type of raw chocolate bean that once thrived in Ecuador, but was believed extinct since 1916 until recently being discovered growing in Peru. He showcases the revived variety, once dubbed the “world’s finest chocolate,” in the form of a traditional truffle.

The La Colombe bars will be available in about two weeks at all La Colombe locations and at Éclat’s storefront in West Chester

Earlier: Garces Gets His Smoked Paprika Spanish Almonds In Éclat’s Single-Source Chocolate

West Chester’s Éclat Chocolate Teams Up With La Colombe