Graeff van Blesckens cheese

Graeff van Blesckens cheese

Aged Graeff van Blesckens cheese

This cheese is made by the De Graafstroom cheese dairy in Bleskensgraaf in the Dutch province of South Holland. In the spring of 1908, fifteen ranchers from the Bleskensgraaf area decided to join. This is how De Graafstroom was born, the dairy is named after the canal that runs through the village of Bleskensgraaf. For years, milk was transported by boat throughout De Graafstroom, but now boats, bicycles, horse-drawn carts, and handcarts have been replaced by “refrigerated” trucks that keep the milk nice and fresh. The dairy survived two world wars and the catastrophic 1953 flood.
It is a Gouda-style pasteurized cow's milk cheese, with a refined, rich and creamy flavor thanks to a natural maturation process that lasts for about 10 months, due to this, it is velvety, and presents fine crystals that look like salt. but they are actually tyrosine.
Graeff van Blesckens is a hard cheese, which softens considerably on the palate, giving it an almost creamy sensation, with crunchy tyrosine (amino acid) crystals interspersed throughout the surface, formed naturally during the aging process.
The taste is sweet and nutty, with an aroma reminiscent of peanuts, roasted hazelnuts, bacon, and butter. It has a blatantly wonderful and sweet butterscotch aroma typical of cured Goudas, but the Graeff van Blesckens is more subtle. It is difficult to say if this type of cheese is more flavorful than sweet. It fills the mouth with a clear mass, but without the cloying sweetness of some Goudas and with the contrast of the crystals that emerge when chewing.

You can buy it in wedges of 300 grams.