Coolea
milk type
Cow
ingredients
MILK, salt, rennet
coagulant
Animal Rennet
milk treatment
Pasteurised
location
Coolea, Cork
milk source
Bought-in
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milk type
Cow
ingredients
MILK, salt, rennet
coagulant
Animal Rennet
milk treatment
Pasteurised
location
Coolea, Cork
milk source
Bought-in
breed
Holstein-Friesian
season
All year
average age
18-24 Months
cheesemakers
Dicky Willems
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The family that make Coolea cheese moved to southern Ireland from the Netherlands, bringing with them the Dutch tradition of making sweet, buttery cheeses.
Background
This cheese is made on a small farm in Coolea in the beautiful Derrynasaggart Mountains of County Cork, but the inspiration for its style can be found in the much flatter terrain of the Netherlands...
Read More
This cheese is made on a small farm in Coolea in the beautiful Derrynasaggart Mountains of County Cork, but the inspiration for its style can be found in the much flatter terrain of the Netherlands. Dick and Helene Willems moved to Ireland from their native Holland in the late 1970s, and the cheese they produce from the pasteurised milk of a local herd of Holstein-Friesian cows mirrors a traditional Dutch Gouda make: the curds scalded and washed to remove some of the lactose and reduce the acidity, pressed for around six hours, then brushed by hand with yellow plasticoat before being matured for at least three months and often much longer.
Read Less
Our Work
We've been buying Coolea from Helen and Dick since the 1980s, and we export their cheese all over the world. We visit them twice a year on our visits to Ireland. The milk they use is from a farm th...
Read More
We've been buying Coolea from Helen and Dick since the 1980s, and we export their cheese all over the world. We visit them twice a year on our visits to Ireland. The milk they use is from a farm that is close by, on land that can be wet for much of the year, and this provides the best quality of milk between April and September when the weather is drier. Through extensive tasting, we have come to find that the cheese made from this milk can be matured for longer and has a more interesting and intense flavour, so this tends to be the Coolea that we select to mature in London. Generally, we sell Coolea somewhere between 18 months and two years old.
Read Less
Accompaniments
Mixed Seed Crackers
£3.15
Rosebud Old Yorkshire Chutney
£6.00
Recipes
A Cheesemonger’s Baked Cheese Pasta
This recipe for a hearty cheese pasta comes to us from our seasonal cheesemonger Neil, who has returned year after year to sell cheese with our Covent Garden team at Christmas. He strategically c...FAQs
As a general rule of thumb, we would recommend roughly between 100 and 150 grams per person for after dinner, and a bit more if cheese is the focus of the meal. If you are buying cheese to serve over a couple of days or as part of a buffet, it is advisable to buy a few larger pieces. This will both look better and keep better than many small bits. To help visualise weights, a good tip is to consider that a regular supermarket pat of butter weighs between 200 and 250 grams. If you are at all unsure please give us a call for some advice.
The best option is to keep your cheese wrapped in its paper within a box in the fridge. This will prevent the cheese from drying out and absorbing other flavours. Your cheese will arrive wrapped in waxed cheese paper, which achieves the best possible balance between maintaining humidity around the cheese and allowing it to breathe. We are happy to provide some free extra cheese paper, just search for "cheese paper" and add it to your basket. We don't recommend cling film or foil as it can cause the cheese to sweat which will negatively affect the flavour.
Coolea
The flavours of Coolea are sweet and rich, with hints of caramel, butterscotch and honey
The family that make Coolea cheese moved to southern Ireland from the Netherlands, bringing with them the Dutch tradition of making sweet, buttery cheeses.
milk type
Cow
ingredients
MILK, salt, rennet
coagulant
Animal Rennet
milk treatment
Pasteurised
location
Coolea, Cork
milk source
Bought-in
breed
Holstein-Friesian
season
All year
average age
18-24 Months
cheesemakers
Dicky Willems
background
This cheese is made on a small farm in Coolea in the beautiful Derrynasaggart Mountains of County Cork, but the inspiration for its style can be found in the much flatter terrain of the Netherlands. Dick and Helene Willems moved to Ireland from their native Holland in the late 1970s, and the cheese they produce from the pasteurised milk of a local herd of Holstein-Friesian cows mirrors a traditional Dutch Gouda make: the curds scalded and washed to remove some of the lactose and reduce the acidity, pressed for around six hours, then brushed by hand with yellow plasticoat before being matured for at least three months and often much longer.
our work with this cheese
We've been buying Coolea from Helen and Dick since the 1980s, and we export their cheese all over the world. We visit them twice a year on our visits to Ireland. The milk they use is from a farm that is close by, on land that can be wet for much of the year, and this provides the best quality of milk between April and September when the weather is drier. Through extensive tasting, we have come to find that the cheese made from this milk can be matured for longer and has a more interesting and intense flavour, so this tends to be the Coolea that we select to mature in London. Generally, we sell Coolea somewhere between 18 months and two years old.
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