![]() ![]() This was a good way to use my milk and make a living with flexible hours. I had goats and friends with restaurants who needed cheese. I started a company as a single mom with four kids, necessity being the mother of invention. M.K.: Really there was no plan of pioneering anything. At the time, it was about using up our milk and going with the flow, no pun intended!ĬC: Talk about how Cypress Grove pioneered the artisan goat cheese movement. I didn’t have a big plan to start a business at the time, I just followed the path as it presented itself. With my four daughters and their friends, we learned to make goat milk cheese and soap at home. At the time, I had a lot of goats and so much milk that I started a 4H dairy group. It takes quite a few animals to have a genetically-diverse herd, which translated to much more milk than we could consume. ![]() We’d go into the ring to show our goats but this was about conformation, rather than production based. My goats actually set national production records, which was unusual in the show circuit. I had national champions of Alpine for several years. ![]() In the 70s and early 80s, I focused on production and showing goats nationally. M.K.: I was a marine biology major at the University of California at Santa Barbara but I later became more interested in genetics. As it matures, flavors intensify and and can become quite assertive, especially just under the rind.Cheese Connoisseur spoke with Keehn about her foray into the cheese world, the evolution of Cypress Grove and the creation of the company’s award-winning cheeses.ĬC: Tell me about your journey into cheese. When young, the cheese is clean, bright and lemony with a citrus-like tang. The flavors of Humboldt Fog change with age. With age, the paste starts to break down under the rind, becoming smoother, slightly translucent and ultimately runny. Tasting NotesĪpart from the horizontal line of ash, the interior paste of the cheese is snow-white in color when young, with a smooth, dense and slightly crumbly texture. The cheeses spend ten days in primary ripening where they are turned daily, and then “cold stabilized” for several more days before being wrapped and sent to market. The curd is mixed with salt, hand-packed into cheese forms, ashed, and then sprayed with mold cultures. The mixuture is then moved to a curd press where the whey is drained off. To make the cheese cheesemakers pasteurize goat milk in a vat where cultures and coagulants are added and held for the acid ripening process. Keehn first dreamed up Humboldt Fog in 1993 after returning from a trip to Europe, inspired to create a cheese that visually echoes the typical thick white fog that frequently settles over the dark green landscape of her native Humboldt County. ![]() Emmi committed to keeping the company headquarters in Humboldt County as well as maintaining Cypress Grove’s long-standing commitments with the community, environment and milk suppliers. However none of the proposals seemed an appropriate fit until 2010 when she received a proposal from Emmi, a Swiss company, majority-owned by a cooperative of small farmers and dairy operators. Today, each dairy still operates under an incentive program, ensuring consistent high quality.Īs the company expanded, Keehn was approached with many acquisition offers. As the company grew, Keehn decided to sell her animals to a number of local farms and buy back the milk. At that time, commercial goat cheese production was virtually unheard of in the US. Within a few years, the herd increased significantly finding herself with excess milk, Keehn began experimenting with cheesemaking, founding Cypress Grove in 1983. After starting with two animals, she quickly developed a passionate interest in breeding high quality Alpine goats. Its origins date back to the 1970’s, when founder Mary Keehn became interested in goats while searching for a healthy source of milk for her young daughters. Humboldt Fog Producer Cypress Grove Chevre Country United States Region California Weight 1lb or 5lb Website Milk GoatĬypress Grove is located in foggy Humboldt County, in the temperate northwest coastal region of California. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |