‘Come and look at this!’ says a muffled voice from underneath a dustsheet the size of a circus tent. ‘Imagine the truffles that would come out of that!’ Underneath, it turns out, is a huge antique melangeur – a machine used to turn roasted cacao nibs or nuts into a smooth, rich liquid. It’s so big that it has to sit outside, with only its blue-and-yellow-striped cover to protect it. But there are big plans in place for this monster of a machine.
The man extolling the virtues of this beautiful old melangeur is Willie Harcourt-Cooze, someone who not only knows absolutely everything there is to know about chocolate, but seems to have also squeezed in five lifetimes’ worth of adventure into just one. But while things like growing up on a remote Irish island and travelling the world in search of sights and new experiences might be the defining moments of most people’s lives, Willie has made a name for himself with something we all know and love – chocolate.
You might have seen his bars of Willie’s Cacao in the shops – glamorous little squares of incredible bean-to-bar chocolate. But among all those different bars promising various cocoa percentages and fruity flavour notes, Willie’s Cacao is a cut above. Arguably, that's down to what he leaves out of his chocolate just as much as what he puts in.
Look at the list of ingredients on most bars of chocolate and they’ll usually contain two unassuming things – soya and vanilla. They’re so common that many people haven’t actually eaten a bar of chocolate without them in. But therein lies the problem: both these ingredients have a strong taste that alters and overpowers the actual flavour of the chocolate.