Greetings from the Tibetan borderlands!

[happysheep]

Tashi delek!

Hi, my name's Keith and I live in the borderlands of Tibet in south-west China's Yunnan province. At 2400 m high, the water here boils at 91C or 197F.

Locally, we have available goat cheese, as well as yak cheese (both hard and soft).

I started making cheese here partly out of curiosity, partly because I was missing cheese (I am originally from New Zealand), and also because I like making things myself (I also make sourdough barley and buckwheat breads, beer, and I grow herbs and salad vegetables).

I make cheese, using local dairy cow milk (organic). I make mainly soft cheeses - cream cheese, ricotta, feta, halloumi, queso blanco, queso fresco, etc - but also harder cheeses.

The main challenges I have are accessing cultures and rennets for cheese-making (customs seems to stop a lot of shipments, so I am always looking for 'mules' to bring over these ingredients), and adapting recipes according to the characteristics of the milk and the influence of the altitude.

[Cheese Head]

Tashi delek happysheep and welcome to the forum!

OK I assume that means hello in Yunnan. Well that's interesting, way more fun than living in Houston Texas suburbia. I'll assume not many Kiwi's there.

Also, I have never even heard of Yak's Milk Cheese, I'll change the Milk Making board description in case you want to post anything there!

Congrats on making all the more regular cheeses, looking forward to your advice etc, again welcome.

[Tea]

HI Keith and welcome to he board.  What an interesting and beautiful part of the world to live.
Yak milk sounds interesting.  Would love to get my hands on some of that to try.  Would love to hear of your cheese adventures.