Cacao Nibs

Mount Hope Wholesale now carries Organic Raw Cacao Nibs. These are the coarsely crushed (but not ground) seed of the cacao tree. Most famously, cacao* is the basis of chocolate, but it has been consumed by people for thousands of years. The cacao tree is a native of South America, with origins suspected to be in what is today Colombia and Venezuela, and the bean was so highly regarded in ancient times, they were even used as currency.

The fruit of the cacao tree is a pod with a leathery rind containing a few dozen seeds. These seeds are surround by a sweet pulp that is mostly lost in the drying process. The seeds start out with purple color, varying in darkness from pod to pod. The color is also lost in the drying process, and the cacao bean is almost always a dark brown color by the time it is consumed.

Speaking of consumption…

Cacao is generally considered to be a great source of antioxidants, perhaps having positive antiaging and cardiovascular effects. Before becoming chocolate, this stuff is actually really good for you. When you open a bag of our organic cacao nibs, the smell is strong and instantly recognizable, they smell just like chocolate. The sugar and milk mixed with cacao bean solids to make chocolate definitely make up an important part of chocolate’s flavor, but they don’t contribute much to the aroma.

Our cacao nibs are a great addition to to dishes or snacks that need the character of chocolate, but want to avoid the fat and sugar of chocolate chips or the like. They go wonderfully in granolas, or on top of other cereals. Mix them with with dried fruit and yogurt for delicious parfait. Or, perhaps my favorite, swap a tablespoon of your favorite coffee beans for cacao nibs to make your morning cup a little more interesting (they’re much softer than coffee beans though, and don’t need to be ground very fine).

Experiment with them and let us know what you come up with on Twitter, Facebook or Instagram.

*We call them cacao nibs, but cacao and cocoa are commonly interchangeable. Cocoa is the english word derived from the Spanish cacao, but the Spanish is often in used in English contexts as well.

Welcome to Our New Site

We’ve been hard at work on a new website for you, and it’s finally ready. Our site has been a huge part of our growth and success over the last few years, and we hope the new design can continue and expand upon the work of the old. This isn’t just a fresh coat of paint though, and there are a couple changes I want to point out specifically.
Mount Hope Wholesale is Proud to Introduce an all new website

Usual Choices

The big change is the introduction of ‘Your Usual Choices‘. Placing a big order before could be a pain, but this new feature should make it a breeze. There were two main hurdles slowing down the ordering process before:

  1. We have over 500 products across 16 categories
  2. The only add to cart button was on a product’s detail page

So if you wanted to order a dozen things, you had to navigate to at least a dozen individual product pages, and you may have needed to visit a number of different category pages to get to them.

Mount Hope Wholesale is Proud to Introduce an all new website
Of course, no one business uses all of our different products. The vast majority of the kitchens we supply don’t typically use more than 30 or so individual products. Browsing from category to category through 500+ items to get to the couple dozen you care about is a painful process to repeat week after week.

Now, when you log in, you’ll land on a page that has all the products you buy in one place. Products are sorted by frequency so the things ordered most often will be up top, and you can add to cart without visiting the product’s detail page. For routine orders of the items you usually purchase, you won’t have to leave this page until you’re ready to checkout. It should greatly speed up the process of restocking your kitchen from Mount Hope.

Personal Shopping

Our site has generated so much interest over the last few years that we’re ready to try something entirely new. We’re now proud to offer our products to people at home for their own personal use. Wholesale accounts still enjoy better pricing, but personal shoppers don’t need to meet minimums and don’t have to be running a business to establish an account. Learn more at this page if you’re interested.

Mobile Friendly

The old design was intended for a laptop or desktop, and was difficult to use on a mobile phone. This new site will now work MUCH more nicely if you’re visiting us on a small device. The design will adapt to whatever screen you’re on, and the layout should be easy and intuitive to navigate no matter where you are. What used to require pinching to zoom in and panning all around is now a simple matter of scrolling up and down.

Secure Credit Card Saving

One of our most requested features has been the ability to save a credit card to your account. Well, now you can. Between this and the new Usual Choices view, re-ordering should be faster than ever.

Clearer Focus

We’ve simplified the layout, so you can more easily focus on the job you’re here to do. By eliminating a lot of clutter, and better organizing the stuff you really need, we’ve made the process of browsing for product and adding it to your cart easier and more obvious. We also made the photography a higher priority, so you get an even better idea of what the product looks like, and a clearer sense of its quality.

I hope the new site makes your experience shopping with Mount Hope Wholesale even better.

Name Changes for Maple Syrup

You may have noticed that our maple syrup is no longer labeled Grade B.  Now you’ll see Grade A – Dark Amber Robust Taste on the jug. Don’t worry though, it’s still the same dark and delicious maple syrup we’ve always carried.

The naming of syrup refers primarily to its color and flavor intensity, not its quality. Grade A wasn’t worse or better than Grade B, it was just generally lighter in color and more delicate in flavor. However, this naming could lead to confusion, since Grade A sounds like it ought to be “better” than Grade B (and definitely better than a D+. Thanks Mr. Maxwell, I’ll always remember).

To make it more confusing, Grade A had three subclassifications: Light Amber, Medium Amber, and Dark Amber. Then there was Grade B, which was really just one step darker.

In 2014 and 2015, the United States Department of Agriculture, under pressure from the International Maple Syrup Institute, has rolled out changes to the US maple syrup grading system. The US labeling now more closely matches international standards.

With these changes, all maple syrup meant for direct consumption is called Grade A, there are no other letters anymore. Grade A is broken down into 4 different color and flavor classifications:

  • Golden color and delicate taste
  • Amber color and rich taste
  • Dark color and robust taste
  • Very dark and strong taste.

There is a fifth classification for syrup made for being used in candy making and other manufacturing applciations. This is called simply Processing Grade, it has no letter designation, and you won’t find it in stores. The hope is that by standardizing across the industry, the consistency will help consumers know what they are purchasing as well as making American maple syrup easier to export to other countries.

Mount Hope has always carried Grade B in the past, which was fairly dark and had a strong maple flavor. The new name for syrup in that part of the spectrum is Grade A Dark Color, Robust Taste.

Boy, after all this Maple Syrup talk, I think I’m ready for some oatmeal with a little drizzle of good ol’ Dark Color Robust Taste. I’ll be in the kitchen if you need me.

Smoked Chipotle and Cyprus Sea Salt

Introducing Cyprus Flake Sea Salt and Smoked Chipotle Salt

Mount Hope Wholesale is excited to add two new salts to our lineup.

Cyprus Flake Sea Salt is great used as a finishing salt for everything from your meats to the rim of your margaritas! This sea salt comes to us from the island of Cyprus in the Mediterranean and it has a unique pyramid shape to its flakes. Sprinkle just a pinch of this delicious salt onto your beautifully cooked veggies, meats or fish filets to add a final touch of flavor and texture before serving.

Our other new addition is a naturally flavored salt. Chipotle Salt is a great way to incorporate instant flavor into your salsa, guacamole, or cheese dip with a hint of smoked jalepeno. With a dash of this specialty salt, you can add a smoky South of the Border flavor to your dips and other dishes.

Both are available now and join our wide range of other flavored and sea salts.

Fruit Juice Sweetened Strawberries

Fruit Juice Sweetened Dried Strawberries

Dried strawberries have been a staple at Mount Hope since the early days. They’re one of our most popular dried fruits and they’re a key ingredient on more menus than we can count. Dried strawberries, like some other dried berries, have a bit of added sugar to keep them sweet. That’s not exactly startling news of course, but added sugar, even in small amounts, leaves a little something to be desired.

We try to go with more natural, less processed options whenever we are able. We’re pleased to introduce a new dried strawberry that has no added sugar. Our dried strawberries are now sweetened with fruit juice concentrates (specifically apple and strawberry).

On top of the benefit of not having added sugar, these new strawberries are more moist, and even more delicious than their predecessors as well. They’re a bit darker in color, and the size varies quite a bit.

Try them out today, and let us know what you think. We’re sure you’ll find them as sweet and delightful as we do.

Grand Canyon Gorp, a New Trail Mix

Grand Canyon Gorp

Since at least the 1910s, hikers and campers have been counting on the simple combination of nuts, raisins and chocolate for easy to pack energy. Protein and quickly digestible sugar can keep you going when you’re out on the trail trying to get to your next site before sundown. This original gorp ingredient list was first recorded by Horace Kephart in his 1916 outdoor guide, The Book of Camping and Woodcraft.

The basics have been supplemented or swapped out ever since to accommodate personal tastes far and wide. In fact, our own Deluxe Trail Mix is a combination of supplementing AND swapping. There’s no chocolate in our Deluxe, and we add pineapple and papaya, as well as up the ante with some more prestigious nuts like brazil nuts, and hazelnuts. The result has been a popular choice for our customers, but ‘deluxe’ isn’t always what you’re after when you’re about to hit the trail for a hike.

Our brand new Grand Canyon Gorp is, mostly, a return to the classic vision of a hearty, energy packed, and low-cost trail mix. Peanuts and green raisins make up the bulk of the mix. M&Ms are added for some sweetness, and almonds and cashews are included for an extra injection of protein, and for their savory flavor and crunch.

Great on the trail or by the campfire (or heck, even at the bar), our Grand Canyon Gorp is the perfect mix of crunchy and chewy, of salty and sweet. Try some out today and enjoy Mount Hope’s version of classic trail mix.

Introducing Razz Cranberries

Buy Razz Cranberries in Bulk

There were some big shoes to fill when Razz Cherries stopped being manufactured. They’d been a signature product for Mount Hope for years, and losing them was a hard pill to swallow. Razz cherries were dried cherries imbued with the flavor of raspberry, and they weren’t just a signature product for us either. Many of our customers counted on their unique flavor to put the finishing touch on their salads and desserts. We carry two other scrumptious cherry varieties that are also very popular, Bing and Tart, but there was something extraordinary about that raspberry infusion.

Shop Now for Razz Cranberries.

Razz Cranberries to the Rescue

After months of searching, we feel we’ve finally found a worthy successor. In fact, we’re so pleased with this new find that we’re willing to share the name of our old favorite. We’re excited to announce the addition of Razz Cranberries to our lineup of dried fruits.

Razz Cranberries are virtually identical in appearance to typical dried cranberries, same average size and same color. They start in the mouth a bit sweeter than typical cranberries and have the distinctive flavor of raspberry, but the trademark tartness of the cranberry follows right behind. In our opinion here at Mount Hope, we think they exceed the deliciousness of the Razz Cherries. The tartness adds a little complexity that makes the over all taste much more interesting.

We also find the size of these to be a little more flexible than the Razz Cherry had been. Since cranberries are smaller than cherries, they’ll go into baked goods more easily. But they’re not so small that they can’t stand on their own atop a couple scoops of ice cream. They’re sightly smaller diameter also sits more naturally next to some Sunflower Seeds and Super Sweet Corn on top of a chopped salad. Try them in sauces, custom trail mixes, and granola too.

Razz Cranberries are made with Craberries, sugar, sunflower oil, and natural fruit flavors. There are no preservatives or colorings added. Mount Hope Wholesale is selling them in 1 and 5 pound bags, and they’re ready for you to try right away.

Urfa Biber Chile Flakes

 

Buy Urfa Biber Chile Flakes at Mount Hope Wholesale

Urfa Biber Chile Flakes Now Available

Mount Hope now carries Urfa Biber chile flakes. The Urfa Biber chile takes its name from the Urfa region of Turkey where it hails from, but is also sometimes called the isot pepper. It’s a red pepper, but ends ups with a deep purplish or even purplish black color when processed. The processing involves two steps, sun drying during the day, and ‘sweating’ at night. This involves tightly wrapping the peppers when the temperature cools, which traps and keeps some of the moisture in the flesh.

Urfa Biber flakes aren’t particularly hot (about 7,500 Scoville units). They’re in the ballpark of jalapeño or guajillo, and that heat builds up slowly. We have them in 1lb bags and they’re in stock now.

Visit Urfa Biber Chile Flake page to order.

Black Pepper

Black Peppercorns

Black pepper is one of the most commonly used spices in restaurants and at home, and is one of our biggest sellers. Whole black peppercorns are the dried fruit of a vine called Piper Nigrum. These fruits are actually still green and not yet ripe when they’re taken off the vine and set to dry for a few days.

There is a white seed inside, and as the green fruit around it shrinks and wrinkles it also darkens to nearly black. This darkened and shriveled exterior is what we’re used to seeing in a whole peppercorn. The light seed inside is why black pepper lightens up when it is ground, cracked, crushed or otherwise pulverized.

Green peppercorns and white peppercorns are from the same fruit, but processed differently and at different stages of ripeness to attain different colors and flavor.

New Mexico Chiles

New Mexico Chiles

New Mexico Chiles are about 5 inches to 7 inches long and about 1.5 inches across. Mount Hope Wholesale sells New Mexico Chiles in bulk in three varieties: dried whole red pods, dried red powder, and dried green powder. The New Mexico Chile is a very popular chile with medium heat (1,500 – 2,500 Scoville Units), but with a very quick heat dissipation. That means that you’ll definitely feel it, but the burn won’t linger very long.

Mount Hope Wholesale also offers a wide assortment of other chiles at bulk pricing, but in accessible pack sizes. Check out our full selection on our chiles category page.