Cocoa powder from the Criollo bean is the chocolate connoisseur’s raw material: the rare fine-flavour cacao variety, grown organically in Peru, pressed of much of its butter and milled to a deep, fragrant powder. No alkalising, no additives — 250 g of single-ingredient cacao, packed in the UK.

Criollo, the fine-flavour bean

Most of the world’s cocoa comes from high-yield bulk varieties; Criollo is the other tradition — a small fraction of global harvest, cherished since pre-Columbian times for aromatic complexity and low bitterness. In powder form that pedigree is obvious: this cup runs fruity, floral and deeply chocolatey where supermarket cocoa runs flat and sharp. It is the difference between table wine and the good bottle, applied to chocolate’s raw material.

Natural vs Dutch-processed

This is natural cocoa powder — not alkalised (“Dutched”). Practically, that means it keeps the bean’s natural acidity and brighter, more complex flavour, and it behaves accordingly in baking: natural cocoa is the one classic American-style recipes pair with bicarbonate of soda, which needs its acidity to rise. Dutched cocoa is darker and milder; natural cocoa like this one is livelier in the cup and truer to the bean.

How to use it

• Real hot chocolate — two teaspoons whisked into hot milk with sugar to taste; the Criollo perfume needs no vanilla
• Baking — brownies, cakes and cookies where cocoa is the star rather than the background
• Smoothies — with banana, dates and nut butter for the chocolate-milkshake effect without the milkshake
• Raw desserts — the essential partner to our cocoa butter for home chocolate-making, truffles and raw brownies
• Dustings and rims — over cappuccino, tiramisu and truffles, where quality is most exposed

What’s naturally in the cup

Cocoa is the plant kingdom’s famous flavonoid reservoir, and the unalkalised powder keeps more of those polyphenols than Dutch processing preserves. It carries minerals the bean genuinely holds — magnesium, potassium, copper and iron — and its gentle native stimulant theobromine, warmer and slower than caffeine. Stated as composition, not promises: this is dark chocolate’s engine room, undiluted.

Frequently asked questions

Cacao or cocoa? Same bean, same powder — “cacao” signals the raw tradition, “cocoa” the everyday cup; this pack answers to both.

Sugar content? None — one ingredient, so you set the sweetness.

Storage? Airtight, cool and dry; cocoa holds its aroma for a year or more when kept from humidity.

Why Peru, why organic

Peru is Criollo’s ancestral neighbourhood — cacao was domesticated on the upper Amazon’s slopes, and Peruvian growers still cultivate the fine-flavour lineages global bulk production abandoned. Small-plot agroforestry suits both the bean and the certificate: cacao grown under shade canopy, organically, the way the variety evolved. Buying single-origin Criollo powder keeps that premium tradition solvent — fine-flavour cacao survives only while someone pays the difference for it, which is the quiet economics behind every genuinely good cup of chocolate.

The house hot-chocolate method

For the definitive cup: two heaped teaspoons of powder, a small splash of just-boiled water worked into a glossy paste (the step that banishes lumps forever), then 200 ml of hot milk whisked in, sweetened to taste. A pinch of cinnamon or chilli honours the drink’s Mesoamerican ancestry; a drop of vanilla flatters the Criollo perfume. The paste trick works identically for smoothies and baking batters — bloom the cocoa first and every recipe tastes deeper.

Pairing and substitution notes

Recipes written for Dutch-processed cocoa still work here — expect a brighter, fruitier result and, in soda-leavened bakes, a better rise. Cocoa’s classic companions all apply: orange, raspberry, coffee, chilli, sea salt and cinnamon each pull a different thread from the Criollo profile, and a spoonful deepens savoury dishes from chilli con carne to mole-style sauces where cooks in the know have always hidden it.

Delivery in Malta & Gozo

€6 delivery, free over €40 across Malta and Gozo, or collection from St Paul’s Bay.