A month full of dinners, meals with friends, family, co-workers is approaching. Maybe you are the host at one of them, that’s why we tell you how to taste a cheese. Because we are sure that your table will not lack a good cheese board.
cheese board
. Or are we wrong?
Would you know how to taste a cheese? If the answer is no, don’t worry, because we are going to explain how to conduct a tasting with the five senses.
Let’s start tasting cheese!
The first thing to look at, sight is the first sense that we use, the most appropriate is to be able to observe the wedge that we are going to take, but also the whole piece. This is not always possible, although it is advisable. Because we can see the shape, appreciate the color of the bark
color of the bark
.
Once we have looked at the outside, we will examine the portion we are going to take, through the color of the paste we can know what type of milk has been used for the production of the cheese.
cheese production.
.
The whiter cheeses are made with goat’s milk, the ivory color indicates that the milk used is sheep’s milk.
sheep
. And if it is straw-white to yellowish-white, it is cow’s milk.
Through the color of the cheese, we can also know how mature it is, since the darker the color, the more mature it is. The healing is also indicated by the cracks it may have.
We looked at it… and now we touch it. First sight, and now touch. First we touch the cheese with our hands, and then with our mouth. With this sense we perceive if the cheese is rough, elastic, etc. In addition, we perceive the degree of moisture, the more tender a cheese is, the higher the degree of moisture, since it has lost less whey.
In the mouth we can also notice the texture, it can be earthy, pasty or creamy. We perceive whether the cheese is melting or granular.
There are many things we have to take into account when tasting a cheese, how are you doing?
We continue with the sense of smell, just as it happens when tasting wine, olfactory analysis is very important when tasting cheese. Through the nose we can perceive all kinds of sensations, in which we can distinguish lactic, vegetal, fruity and spicy impressions.
Taste, through the mouth we value attributes of the cheese; elementary flavors such as sweet, salty, bitter or sour among others. We can distinguish these basic flavors, but we also appreciate the persistence of the flavor, residual taste or aftertaste.
And finally, believe it or not, when it comes to tasting cheese, hearing also helps us to perceive other things about the cheeseFor example, when we chew a parmigiano reggiano, we notice a crunch in the ear, but this does not happen with all cheeses.
As you can see, the five senses are necessary for a cheese tasting, although we have to admit that we lose our senses when we eat a good cheese.
Let’s go cheese tasting!
