Coolea

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
Regular price £18.20
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  • Spend over £39.50 to receive free delivery (England, Wales & Central Scotland)

Standard delivery is free to most postcodes in the UK for orders over £39.50. Click here for a list of postcodes where additional delivery charges apply.

For orders under £39.50, standard delivery is £8.00.

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. 

milk type
Cow

ingredients
Pasteurised Cow's MILK, Salt, Animal Rennet, Cheese Cultures, Sodium Nitrate

coagulant
Animal Rennet

milk treatment
Pasteurised

location
Coolea, Cork

milk source
Bought-in

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milk type
Cow

ingredients
Pasteurised Cow's MILK, Salt, Animal Rennet, Cheese Cultures, Sodium Nitrate

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...

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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 coating before being matured for at least three months and often much longer.

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Our Work

We've been buying Coolea from the Willems family since the 1980s, and we export their cheese all over the world. We visit them twice a year on our trips to Ireland and have supported them in extend...

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We've been buying Coolea from the Willems family since the 1980s, and we export their cheese all over the world. We visit them twice a year on our trips to Ireland and have supported them in extending their maturing store to allow the cheese to be matured for longer. The milk they use is from a farm that is close by and the quality of milk is best between April and September. The cheese that we sell is matured for at least a year and often longer.

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Accompaniments

Mixed Seed Crackers
£3.90

Rosebud Old Yorkshire Chutney
£6.10

Recipes

Neal's Yard Dairy Fondue

We think there is something utterly luxurious and convivial about serving fondue. When temperatures drop we instinctively long for a cauldron of molten deliciousness. As you might imagine, life as ...

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...

Ham and Cheese Crown

Pastry, ham and cheese combine to make a breakfast fit for kings in this wonderful centrepiece for Nadiya Hussain. We used Coolea for this recipe, as a replacement for the original Gouda! Recipe co...

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.

Customer Reviews

Based on 13 reviews
85%
(11)
8%
(1)
0%
(0)
8%
(1)
0%
(0)
V
VIVIENNE MALT
Coolea

A alround crowd pleaser!
Sweet & crunchy.

Your feedback is much appreciated Viv! Many thanks for sharing!
All best,
NYD

F
F.M.
Excellent

Mild and generous. A really excellent addition to my Paddys Day dinner party

We're so happy to hear that Fionn! Many thanks for sharing your feedback with us.
All the best,
NYD

C
Charles Lowe
Another nice cheese

This is an enjoyable cheese with a close, firm, texture and a lovely taste. The Neal's Yard website suggests a similarity to Gouda though to me it is much firmer, not rubbery, and much stronger flavoured. The only drawback is that the minimum quantity purchasable is still a lot of cheese to eat before it starts to dry out.

We appreciate your feedback Charles - many thanks for sharing it.
Kind regards,
NYD

A
Ana Maria Pena

Coolea

Many thanks for your review Ana Maria - much appreciated.
Kind regards,
NYD

L
Louise Quick
Yums!

Christmas wouldn't be the same without it

We appreciate your review Louise. Many thanks!
Kind regards,
NYD