Tower of whole and cut pieces of Coolea Gouda-like cow’s miIk cheese, showing the firm, smooth and closely textured paste

Close up of a cut piece of Coolea Gouda-like cow’s miIk cheese, showing the rind and firm, smooth, closely textured paste

Coolea

The flavours of Coolea are sweet and rich, with hints of caramel, butterscotch and honey. Smooth and close textured, it is reminiscent of Dutch Gouda.

PORTION

Sixteenth

MINIMUM 450 g

Eighth

MINIMUM 905 g

Quarter

MINIMUM 1815 g

Whole

MINIMUM 7265 g

Regular price £14.75 Sale

Quantity

- +

Spend over £29.50 to receive free delivery (England, Wales & Central Scotland)

Delivery Information

Standard delivery is free to most postcodes in the UK for orders over £29.50. Click here for a list of postcodes where additional delivery charges apply.

For orders under £29.50, standard delivery is £6.00.

Collection from our London shops is free - choose Shop Collection at checkout.

Choose your preferred delivery date at checkout. As we use third party couriers (typically DPD) we cannot guarantee the arrival day of your order but we will do our best to ensure that it arrives as close as possible to your chosen date. To be sure it arrives in time, we recommend choosing a date a couple of days ahead of when you would like to eat your cheese.

Download Crib Sheet

milk type
Cow

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. 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.

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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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Accompaniments

Mixed Seed Crackers
£2.90

Rosebud Old Yorkshire Chutney
£4.95

FAQs

How much cheese to buy?

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.

How should I store my cheese?

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.