Colombian Panela is a brightly sweet, subtly toffee-flavored sugar made in the foothills of the Valle de Cauca, outside of Cali. The sugar cane is crushed to extract the cane juice, which is then boiled in a large kettle over an open fire - fueled by crushed cane stalks. As water evaporates out, a rich syrup forms, which is funneled through a series of kettles until it's ready to cool. As the syrup cools, it's stirred by hand with long wooden paddles, forming light golden brown granules of sugar. Unlike normal refined sugars (including those marketed as "raw"), panela never goes through the extensive series of refining steps that turns cane juice into the crystallized sugar you see on the shelves at the supermarket. The result A vastly more flavorful and nuanced sugar that has all kinds of culinary applications. Because this is a natural product, there may be slight variations in the color or granule size depending on the particular harvest the sugar is from. You may even notice a subtle variation in flavor. These are some of the delicious quirks of working with unrefined sugar cane. *some dark bits and clumping are natural!