Willie's Cacao

Pearls of single estate chocolate containing cascades of molten caramel. Available in two flavours: Sea Salt Caramel in fruity Chulucanas 70 dark chocolate, and luscious Passion Fruit Caramel in Rio Caribe 44 milk chocolate. 100% natural, batch made from the best raw materials.

Willie Harcourt-Cooze, the founder of Willie's Cacao, is the UK's pioneer of 'bean to bar' chocolate. His aim is to introduce people to real chocolate with complex, deep, pure flavours that come from the world's best beans. He uses only single estate cacaos, which are like fine wines, each having it's own unique flavour notes, one may taste of fruit, another nuts. He uses only the best, completely natural ingredients like raw cane sugar and natural cocoa butter and he never adds soya lecithin (an industrial processing aid) or even vanilla as they would mask the precious flavour notes of the beans. The chocolate is batch made 'to taste' in his factory in Devon, using a combination of antique and modern machines.

One batch may take up to 21 days which is more than 100 times longer than industrial chocolate as he chooses to conche at low temperatures to drive off the acidity without losing the flavour. Willie practises direct trade which is at a significantly higher level than Fair Trade. As a cacao farmer himself, Willie buys his beans direct from the farmers, paying significantly more than the fair trade premium. Willie's dream of making the world's best chocolate was born on Hacienda El Tesoro, his cacao farm high in the Cloud Forest in Venezuela, and was dramatized in his television shows and cook books. Here is a 90 second video taken from Willie's tv programmes with him telling the story from his farm in Venezuela to his factory in Devon:

www.williescacao.com/willies-world/willies-tv/ (first video, 1min 37)

*One flavour of Black Pearls was included in each Degustabox.