Willie’s Cacao

The creator of this month’s chocolate selections, Willie Harcourt-Cooze of Willie’s Cacao,is a cacao farmer and chocolate fanatic. His penchant for growing cacao and making chocolate arose from his enthusiasm for adventure and travel, which led him to Hacienda El Tesoro in the Venezuelan cloud forest, the farm that he would purchase to grow his own cacao. It is here that Willie has been growing cacao for over two decades.

Willie fondly remembers the first hot chocolate he ever made from his farm’s cacao – plus water and honey. “This is the way the Mayans and the Aztecs enjoyed it, usually adding spices such as chiles, or cornstarch as a thickener. It is the ultimate, dynamic pick-you-up,” he remarked. “In its purest, most powerful form, chocolate contains vitamins B and E, antioxidants, and anandamide, the ‘bliss’ molecule, which acts as a neurotransmitter, sending messages to make you feel happy.”

Willie’s mission is crafting real chocolate, which he describes as “the magical ingredient that ancient south American peoples, the Mayans and Aztecs, knew as the food of the gods; a heady, intoxicating experience that is light years away from modern mass-market chocolate confectionary in which the cacao content is eclipsed by fat and sugar.”

Willie spends months each year traveling from country to country, jungle to jungle around the world to purchase cacao directly from farmers. His beans are not just a single origin, from one country. They are single estate – which means they come from one farm or a co-operative of farmers. Each source has its own unique taste unlike any other. “My aspiration to make the very best chocolate continues to take me traveling on a quest for the world’s great cacaos,” he said. Instead of buying standard Forastero beans, which are used for high-production, less flavorful chocolate, he chooses premium Criollo and Trinitario beans, revered for their distinctive taste profiles.

To that end, in 2008 Willie created the United Kingdom’s first artisan ‘bean to bar’ factory to craft the world’s best chocolate using 100% natural ingredients from single-estate cacaos – no additives like soy lecithin and vanilla, which negatively alter the taste and mask the true flavors. “When people eat our chocolate it’s like a light going on, as the chocolate melts and the realization dawns that all this flavor comes simply from the cacao,” he shared. Willie also incorporates a blend of traditional and modern technologies, each having its own role and purpose. For example, he does all his roasting in antique ball roasters. On the other hand, when it comes to tempering and depositing, he uses modern machines, which give him complete control and consistency. “The tempering machine warms and cools the cacao mass to precise temperatures so that the butter and the solids set together perfectly, and you get chocolate with a beautiful shine and that sharp snap as you break it,” he explained.

From cacao farms to final products, Willie is intimately involved every step of the way to ensure the highest quality.“There are three key things that have to be right,” he affirmed. “The genetics of the bean, its soil and climate, first, then the post-harvest – drying and fermenting, which takes place at the plantation – and finally, the roasting and conching in my production facility.” He also goes easy on the roast – preferring small-batch, lightly roasted beans. “The shells are blown away, a process known as winnowing, so that all that is left is the nibs, the edible part of the bean, which are then ground to release the cocoa butter and turn them into cocoa mass,” he described.

Next comes conching, the process by which a conche, an agitator/mixer (which used to resemble a conch shell, hence the name), distributes the cocoa butter throughout, bringing out the flavors and removing bitterness. For Willie, this means a long, slow process. "It's a delicate operation,” he explained. “If you don’t conch enough you leave bitterness, but if you over-conch you lose individuality. A batch can take anywhere between eight and twelve days and we test all the way through.” Like wine grapes, cacao beans vary according to the growing season – and Willie is attuned to these nuances so he can work with these subtleties to retain each bean’s unique flavors during the production process. “Great cacaos are like fine wines, each one with its own stunningly individual flavor born of its specific genetics, soil, and climate,” Willie shared. “That is why I make all my chocolate from the beans in my own factory, to capture the long-forgotten flavors of the world’s great cacaos.”

There is nothing that gives Willie more pleasure than to see people gasp with delight when they taste the purity of chocolate that comes directly from the cacao beans. “Making chocolate is all about rediscovering the real tastes, textures, and life-giving properties of a food that has been revered for thousands of years, but has somehow lost its way in the modern, commercial world,” he added.

Without further ado, let us enjoy these incredible chocolates. We suggest following Willie’s advice when tasting this month’s selections: “Close your eyes. Let the chocolates melt – and for a few minutes of pure pleasure you will be transported to the other side of the world to the place where the cacao was born.”

• Sea Salt Caramel Pearls: Inside of the Sambirano 71% cacao shell, you will find rich molten caramel and fine flakes of Cornish Sea Salt that combine with this single-estate Madagascan chocolate to create a decadent flavor explosion.
• Milk of the Stars: Milk of the Stars – the 2019 Silver winner of a Specialty Food Association's sofi™ award in the Milk & White Chocolate Category – is made from 54% cacao solids milk chocolate from beans grown in Surabaya on the Indonesian island of Java. It is characterized by the deep caramel notes from this remarkable bean.
• Clementina's Almonds: Willie developed this chocolate bar during COVID as part of club exclusive tastings. It was one of his Tasting Club’s most popular bars. “The honey notes of the clementine whirl in a beautiful Mediterranean dance with the lightly roasted almonds. They are a match made in heaven. The clementine is a softer take on orange that is perfect for milk chocolate,” he described.
• Ginger Lime 70% Dark Chocolate: The honey notes from Cuba’s Baracoa cacao ‘dance’ in unison with ginger and lime. “This exotic square of chocolate hits you with the gentle heat of ginger and follows with a tang of lime, leaving simply delectable chocolate,” described Willie.
• Sambirano Gold 55% Dark Chocolate: Made simply with 55% Sambirano cacao from Madagascar, raw cane sugar, and natural cocoa butter, this bar is ‘simply sublime’. “With a touch of extra sugar, this Sambirano bean comes alive. This is quite simply the juiciest, fruitiest chocolate you will ever taste,” said Willie.
• Truffles – Praline Dark, Praline Milk, and Marc de Champagne: The Dark, Milk and Marc de Champagne truffles are crafted with freshly made single-estate Venezuelan Sur del Lago chocolate combined with lightly roasted hazelnuts, which deepens the characteristically soft, round, and nutty flavor. The truffles are dipped in more single-estate chocolate and finished with a dusting of Willie’s home estate cocoa powder made on an old Spanish cocoa butter press. The Praline Dark and Milk chocolate truffles have a pinch of Cornish Sea Salt, while the latter has Marc de Champagne, a spirit distilled from Champagne’s ‘leftover’ grape marc (seeds and skins). All will melt the hearts of chocolate truffle lovers.