mai 27, 2011
2 Comments

In Nepal, cheese dries like laundry on a line

Posted in Country : Nepal by François-Xavier Delmas | Tags :

I was in Nepal recently and accepted an invitation I had received on numerous occasions to enter a house, often a farm. And I have had many opportunities to admire these strange forms hanging above my head like laundry on a line. It is difficult to know which is more incongruous, the electric bulb or these sticks.

But what is this stuff the colour of fresh butter?

In fact, it is cheese, drying out until it becomes as hard as rock.  When it comes to cutting it, no less than a pair of pincers is required. Chewing it is no easier: even just a tiny piece left to soften for ten or twenty minutes in the mouth is still inedible. It requires enormous patience to actually chew it and extract its minimal flavours.

2 Comments by “In Nepal, cheese dries like laundry on a line”

  • mai 27th, 2011 à 16 h 36 min
    Sarah Mohan says :

    It’s actually yak cheese! I spent a few months in Nepal researching the tea sector there last year and noticed the omnipresent chorpee, as these yak-cheese-strings are called, at local shops. They allegedly have medicinal effects as well!

    I have to say, though, I was less impressed by chorpee pizza and chorpee rosti than I was by the local tea – including artisanal teas made by hand or small-scale processing units in Ilam.

  • juin 2nd, 2011 à 4 h 50 min
    François-Xavier Delmas says :

    Dear Sarah, Thanks for your comments about that cheese!
    Yes in Ilam area you can find different tea factories, and if you like hand rolled type of teas, I think quality will be higher ine the other valley, not so far from Ilam, around Hile. Which factory in Ilam did you prefer in term of quality of the tea ?

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François-Xavier Delmas is a passionate globetrotter. He’s been touring the world’s tea plantations for more than 20 years in search of the finest teas. As the founder of Le Palais des Thés, he believes that travelling is all about discovering world cultures. From Darjeeling to Shizuoka, from Taiwan to the Golden Triangle, he invites you to follow his trips as well as share his experiences and emotions.

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