Chocolateir Willie Harcourt-Cooze bought a 1,000 acre cacao farm in Venezuela nearly two decades ago, and since then has made it his mission to revolutionise how consumers eat and enjoy chocolate.
Only containing three ingredients – cacao, natural cacao butter and raw cane sugar – Willie’s chocolate is manufactured with the help of 100 year old machinery, which he sourced and restored by hand, to process the beans and make the chocolate.
Willie’s Cacao will be available at Coles from 13 October, with the range including single origin chocolate, flavoured ‘inclusions’ chocolate and Black Pearls.
Harcourt-Cooze spoke to Food mag about his unique brand and his perceptions of Australia’s confectionery industry.
TELL US ABOUT THE MACHINERY IN YOUR FACILITY?
My chocolate is all about the flavour of the bean. The cacao has a long journey from ‘bean to bar’ and I choreograph every step to capture the subtle flavour notes of each bean. In the factory some of my machines are the old traditional ones and some are absolutely state of the art. Each has its own role and reason.
For example, I do all my roasting in antique ball roasters. After fermentation and drying, roasting is the next most important stage in developing the unique flavours and aromas of the beans. High quality beans don’t need heavy roasting, so I lightly roast ours in small batches for 20-25 minutes. Our 60 kilo ball roasting machine is almost 100 years old and was produced by Victor Gruber from Bilbao. It has recently been joined by a 250kg 1940’s Bath Sirocco ball roaster. The ball shape gives a more even roast and perhaps less bean breakages than other forms of roasting.
On the other hand, when it comes to tempering and depositing, modern machines are invaluable as they give you 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.
In the Chocolate Factory, I regard my role as Chocolate Maker as being simply to help each bean develop and show its unique flavour as completely as possible. Each different machine has its particular role in this.
HOW DO THESE PRODUCTION TECHNIQUES AFFECT THE END PRODUCT?
For me, 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.
Purity of flavour not only relies on ingredients of the highest quality, but also on processes which respect them. Everything I do in the factory creates my particular style of chocolate, with its very pure, long flavours.
For example by batch roasting the beans in my old ball roasters, I can control their flavours and never get the slightly bitter over roasted taste you often get with mass produced dark chocolate. Each bean is then conched for up to 11 days, with the precise length of time varying each time so that I get the exact flavours that I want.
I never use soya lecithin or even vanilla. Soya lecithin is used to make tempering the chocolate easier and to help maintain shelf life, but I find that it gets in the way of the flavour of the bean.
When people eat my chocolate they say the flavour goes on and on – this is because I use less cocoa butter than most people. The down side is that it makes the manufacturing process harder as the chocolate does not flow so easily and the machines need cleaning more often. But when you let one of my Sea Salt Caramel Black Pearls melt, you first taste the chocolate, then after the caramel has rolled in and out, you are left with the same summer fruit flavours of the cacao that you started with. This would not happen if I used more cocoa butter.
WHAT ARE THE KEY DIFFERENCES BETWEEN SINGLE ORIGIN OFFERINGS AND BLENDS?
The difference is flavour. I love watching people’s faces as they try my chocolate for the first time and as it melts the realisation gradually dawns that all the flavour comes simply from the cacao.
My beans are not just single origin – which means that they come from one country – they are single estate which means that they come from one particular farm or co-operative of farmers, and have their own very particular taste characteristics and style. Great single estate cacaos really are like fine wines.
I use Criollo and Trinitario beans that are less productive but which produce a much more interesting range of flavours and aromas than Foreastero beans that are the basis of most commercial blends and which are hardy, high yielding cacaos that give a classic chocolate taste, but tend to be rather bland.
Most people sell their bars by the percentage of cocao solids they have in them… so you hear people saying that they prefer 70 percent chocolate or 80 percent. But I describe my chocolate by where it comes from and how it tastes, so the Chulucanas 70 that will be available in Coles comes from Chulucanas in the Morropan province of Peru. It is a criollo bean with soft fruit notes of raisins and plums. The 70 means is has 70 percent cocoa solids, which for me is the perfect balance with sugar, but this is not my focus.
TELL US ABOUT THE PROCESS YOU WENT THROUGH TO HAVE YOUR PRODUCTS STOCKED IN COLES OUTLETS?
The team at Stuart Alexander in Sydney saw my TV series about setting up my factory and my mission to bring real chocolate to the world. They were inspired to come and find me at an international trade show.
We developed an agreement to work together and in 2014 Stuart Alexander presented the brand and a plan to launch to Coles supermarkets, which they were very excited by as it suited their desire to bring more unique premium brands to their shoppers.
An initial range of products was then agreed, a joint launch plan developed and the chocolate is hitting the shelves in Coles supermarkets for the first time this October.
WHAT ARE YOUR OBSERVATIONS OF THE CONFECTIONERY INDUSTRY IN AUSTRALIA?
Chocolate has really lost its way in the modern world. The confectionery industry is what it says, a ‘confection’… something invented, made up. Confectionery bars are stuffed full of sugar and fat and bear no resemblance to cacao in its natural form. But all around the world, food lovers are waking up to real chocolate made from interesting beans.
It is as if Green and Black’s opened people’s eyes to conventional dark chocolate and people want more, they are ready to move on to explore cacao’s world of flavour. I think this is just what is happening in Australia.
Dark chocolate is growing at 10 percent a year compared to the total block market at five percent (Aztec Data(Scan data) MAT 06/07/14) but alongside this there is such a vibrant food culture ready to embrace new things.
Also, I think that people draw parallels with other markets, so it is easy for Australians with their great wine industry to understand the similarities between fine wines and cacao.
HOW DOES YOUR PRODUCT COMPARE TO OTHERS, IN REGARDS TO PRICE?
Actually one of the things that really distinguishes our chocolate is its amazing value for money. There are just a handful of really beautifully made chocolates in the world, of which we are one, but they are usually sold at almost twice the price of ours, mainly in individual upmarket stores. I am all about trying to let everyone eat real chocolate. I want my chocolate to be affordable and easily available. That is why I am so excited about it launching in Coles.
In Coles our bars sell at $3.99 compared to Green & Blacks at around $3.99 and Lindt at $3.89, albeit for double the size.
When you think of the difference in quality, this is amazing value. It is easy for people to decide to spend the same amount and get something smaller but really special. That is what affordable treats are all about.
I can sell at these prices because I buy the beans direct from the farmers and make everything myself, even the caramel. Even then we have to work really hard to keep costs down.