If you like chocolate, you can’t beat Easter as a time of year to savour a variety of flavours. Owners of the chocolate workshop in Platres took this to the extreme and produced the world’s most expensive egg
When it comes to record breaking achievements, the mountain village of Platres is hardly the first thought on most people’s minds. However, it recently had its moment of glory with the production of the most expensive Easter egg ever, made to commemorate the opening of the village’s Chocolate Workshop.
“Our showstopper was decorated with a four carat diamond pendant, one carat diamond ring, rubies, emeralds, some sapphires and amethysts,” says John Adams, who owns and runs the Chocolate Workshop in Platres with his wife Efpraxia Perdiou. The show-stopping diamond-studded egg is presently being reviewed for inclusion in the Guinness Book of World Records.
This egg is, in fact, the first of its kind. “No-one has ever made a chocolate Easter egg with diamonds. The closest thing is the Faberge egg, but that’s porcelain. We were inspired by Faberge to make this, but ours is made of chocolate, not porcelain. So there isn’t anything like it – we have set the benchmark for luxury chocolate eggs,” said Efpraxia Perdiou.
Guinness Book representatives were present at the auction to view the egg and are presently reviewing it for inclusion in the book. “It takes a long time to get into the book. We have to go through a long process to get in there. There were three independent valuers present at the auction, a member of the local council, and an independent photographer approved by Guinness Book of World Records. We also had to have it recorded on video. At present we are putting everything together to send it to them,” Adams explains.
In addition to the showstopper, an auction of other Easter related products was held with bidders choosing between a giant one-meter high chocolate egg and a variety of other delicacies. All chocolate eggs on offer were sold at the auction, except for the pricey showstopper.
“The Easter egg auction went wonderfully well. I used a lot of humour and it was quite entertaining. We sold out all the chocolate eggs, except the show-stopping diamond-studded egg as we did not get the price we were hoping for,” Adams explains.
The highest bid for the diamond egg was €14,000, whereas the reserve was set at €15,000 and the egg was valued at €25,000.
“We are still talking with a person interested in buying it and they have suggested taking the egg apart and selling it piece by piece. This for us would only be a final resort as we’d like to sell the egg as a whole,” Adams adds.
All profit from the auction will go to the Sirius Dog Foundation which operates a dog shelter at Moni in the Limassol district. The Chocolate Factory has so far raised around €300 from auctioning the chocolate eggs, and if the show-stopping egg finally gets sold that amount will increase significantly.
In addition to the Easter egg auction, which the Chocolate Workshop’s owners aim to establish as an annual Easter tradition in the village, the chocolate workshop aims to involve the community in their work. “We want the chocolate workshop to be an asset for the community and get people involved in what we do.”
This Easter, children from Platres Primary School will be spending a day at the Chocolate Factory learning how to make chocolate Easter eggs. “Twenty children from the local schools will pay us a visit and we will be making baby chocolate Easter eggs together,” Adams says.
The Workshop specialises in hand-made chocolate cups with traditional Cypriot fillings such as zivania, koumandaria, glyko, Cyprus coffee and palouze.
To try the Chocolate Workshop’s unique chocolate cups visit the village of Platres! For more information contact Efpraxia Perdiou on 99 766446 or 99 494335, email: [email protected]
