Where’s Wonka?
November 14, 2014
Buzz at the Daily Mail, an online UK news portal, is that a real-life Willy Wonka has been discovered, and he is taking the world of chocolate by storm.
Currently in Australia launching his new line of chocolates, “Willie’s Cacao”, Willie Harcourt Cooze is a UK native who is seeking to bring our sugar-ridden palates back to earth with the taste of only the finest cacao.
Cooze attests that big companies have been doing us a disservice by adding too much processed sugar to our chocolate bars, and not using quality cacao beans. He says that not using high quality beans and over roasting results in a bitter taste in dark chocolate. I know precisely what he means, unfortunately.
Most of Cooze’s chocolates only contain three ingredients – cacao made from the finest cacao beans, natural cacao butter, and raw cane sugar. Making chocolate is about bringing out the flavor of the beans, he says.
An experienced chocolatier, Cooze sometimes tweaks the fermentation process of the beans allowing him to develop the flavors himself. In his factory you won’t find any brand new shiny pieces of stainless steel machinery, but antique machines instead, which capture subtle notes and unique flavors.
“Bean to bar,” is the name he has given his process of sourcing beans, buying direct trade from local farmers and producing his own chocolate. Cooze owns and operates a 1,000 acre cacao farm in the rainforests of Venezuela, complete with a custom-built factory. This has been two decades in the making for the chocolate enthusiast.
Cooze delights in seeing the eye-opening experience people have when they eat a good cacao with properly fermented beans.
Not only is this real-life Willy Wonka committed to using high-quality ingredients, he is also on a quest to change our thinking about the way we eat chocolate.
From rice to mashed potatoes, and bread dough to tuna, Cooze has been busily sprinkling cacao into practically anything that goes in his own mouth. He says of cacao, “It can lift something with a depth of flavor.”
Cooze agrees with research supporting the health benefits of real chocolate (as he calls it), with its many essential vitamins, minerals, and antioxidants. He believes once you over process something, you kill it.
With his daily hot cacao in hand, I imagine we’ll be hearing more about UK’s Willie Harcourt Cooze. Let’s not wait though, to heed his advice and follow in his footsteps to the nearest chocolate waterfall.
Photo: "" by Barney Craggs is licensed under CC BY 2.0 / cropped from original
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