The Nestle Noir Eclat Noir is the perfect alternative for those who like chocolate-covered coffee beans. This bar contains bits of coffee beans mixed with dark chocolate. While the chocolate is smooth and rich, it does have that slight bitterness that is characteristic of most dark chocolate. Unfortunately, I found that the coffee beans added to the bitterness, and I did not enjoy it as much as I thought I would. However, I have to add that I don't generally like chocolate-covered coffee beans so perhaps this is a carry-over from that. Others who tried this chocolate bar with me found it to be pleasantly tasty and a treat that they enjoyed with their coffee.

The taste-testing trio thoroughly and unanimously approved of Nestle Noir Eclat Noir. In particular, they loved the chocolate bits. IMHO, if you want to introduce immature palettes to the pleasures of dark chocolate, this is good place to start.

They liked the texture (smooth with little bits of chocolate surprises) and the taste. I will definitely be buying more for them. They made me promise.

This one is a winner!! Nestle's dark chocolate line finally got dark enough. To me, dark chocolate is not something you snarf down in sweet delight. B/c its bitter and sharp, it needs to savored in small doses. This bar definitely stops me in my tracks, one nibble at a time. I don't feel the need to go after another bite for quite some time. The bitterness is finally up to par.

As for the texture, yeah, there are a lot of crunchy beans in the chocolate. But I think they are necessary. W/o them, this bar would not be dark enough and bitter enough to classify as a true dark chocolate. The crunchy beans add to the fullness of the bitter dark chocolate flavor.

Our taste testers were:
Rachel: 32 year old woman, extreme chocolate lover
Jeff: 31 year old man, enjoys chocolate, picky eater
Kelly: 32 year old female
Ben: 30 year old male
Alice: 10 year old girl, part time host of online cooking show, enjoys chocolate

Each taste tester tried the bar, and rated it on a scale of 1 to 10, 10 being the best chocolate ever, and 1 being “yucky”. As a benchmark, we rated a plain Hershey bar and a Nestle Crunch bar as 8 on the scale. All of the bars were large, 100g compared to the 43 g of a “plain, old” Hershey bar.

This is not a chocolate bar you’ll see melting in a 7-year-old’s palm, but rather an adult’s much deserved “special treat”. The packaging says it each bar is “a good source of magnesium which helps build strong bones” and “contains 300 mg of Polyphenols per serving.”

What’s really going to sell chocolate, though, is taste.
The Eclat Noir has 64% cocoa solids – but mixed with caramelized cocoa bean pieces. This was a very unique candy bar, like nothing we had tasted before. The bits of bean were crispy, similar to a Nestle Crunch, but smaller & fewer crispies. Alice gave it a 6, Jeff gave it a 6 and Rachel gave it a 7. Kelly thought the flavor was reminiscent of coffee, and the texture and aftertaste were a bit strange and gave it a 7. Ben thought it was hard to discern the cocoa bean flavor from the candy bar itself and gave it a 5.

I liked the idea of this chocolate and cocoa combination, but the execution didn't quite pan out. The crunchy, bitterness of the cocoa nibs was delightful, but I found the sheer quantity of the nibs to be overwhelming. I liked the taste and the idea, but it was too rich, too much. There are other bars on the market with this same combination but in much more satisfying ratios.

I'm going to echo others' comments here. This flavor is definitely for the dark chocolate lover (which I happen to be, conveniently). The crunchy texture is a nice surprise and a pleasant taste. The intensity of the flavor would make it an excellent addition to another dish (someone has already made the great suggestion of a choco-croissant which I want to try out!), such as broken into a strawberry yogurt dessert. On its own, some people may find this a little too strong.

My personal favorite of the four Nestle Noir flavors is far and away the "Intense" bar, which has the creamiest and simplest taste and texture of all of them. Still, I would gladly buy this and the other varieties if my favorite is not available.

While I liked the texture the cocoa beans added to this dark chocolate, I found that it tastes too much like your typical dark chocolate. There was really nothing special about this one besides the texture. I did enjoy the extra twang of bitterness from the caramelized cocoa beans though! I think this would be perfect and a must for any lover of dark chocolate.

The contrast of textures between the chocolate and the cocoa bean pieces is nice. The burst of extra bitterness from the cocoa beans was a bit too much for my personal tastes. I thought this one was more intense than the Intense chocolate bar was.

I got this chocolate through Freebie Friday. I love dark chocolate, so I enjoyed it. However, I must admit that I was a little disappointed in the caramelized cocoa bits. The cocoa bits sounded interesting but because it's mixed in with such rich dark chocolate already, the cocoa bits flavour didn't stand out at all. Although I enjoyed the crunchy texture of the chocolate bar, I didn't find this to be anything special. I shared this chocolate bar with a friend of mine who also had the Noir Cherry with me. She also agreed that this wasn't as good as it looked. Overall, it tasted good and we enjoyed this delicious little snack!

I think that if you are a devoted lover of dark chocolate, you'll love this chcolate! As someone who is not, however, I found it too intense and not sweet enough for my liking. I did discover, however, that melt inside Pillsbury Croissants made the perfect use for this chocolate as its rich flavour was a great compliment for the croissants!