Chhurpi: Hardest Cheese in the World
Chhurpi (also known as “durkha”) is the hardest cheese in the world. Yes, you spell it with a double “h.” Chhurpi has two varieties, soft and hard, and the ingredients are the same. Eating it fresh or pressing and drying the product, determines its firmness and shelf life.
This cheese is made from the milk of a yak or chauri (a cross between a cow and a yak) in the high, remote mountain regions of the Himalayas. Farmers have been crafting chhurpi for centuries using traditional methods from native inhabitants. Yak milk, a citric acid, and salt are the only ingredients. The cheese is popular in Nepal, Sikkim (a state in northeastern India), Tibet, and Bhutan.
The soft kind, with fluffy, white, neutral tasting curds that resemble Italian ricotta, stays fresh for only two weeks. This version of chhurpi is left to ferment for a short time to gain tanginess. The cheese is mixed with vegetables and served with rice. Loaded with digestible protein, chhurpi contains vitamins, minerals, probiotics, and other important nutrients that help the people in the mountains survive.
To create the hard version of the cheese, one starts with the soft kind. Then, it is wrung out, pressed, sliced into thick bars, and dried in the sun or on low heat in a wood fire oven for days. The oven gives the product a slight smoky flavor. The pressing and drying process turns those fluffy curds into fragments of brick.
To eat the hard chhurpi, one must let a piece sit in your mouth for an extended time to soften. It is said that people can chew excellent quality chhurpi for hours and hours and enjoy the taste. Known as the “Himalayan chewing gum,” dried chhurpi will last for months without refrigeration. If kept in special bags made from yak skin, the cheese can last for two decades without spoiling. Wow.
Another use for this hard cheese is as a natural dog treat. With the fat skimmed off in the cheese-making process, it’s an excellent source of a healthy protein for dogs. According to some of my research, the cheese keeps their teeth clean and, reportedly, dogs like the taste. Hunks of chhurpi are available at major pet stores or online, sometimes sold as a “Himalayan dog treat” or “Yak milk dog chews.”
Intrigued, I wanted to try a sample made for humans. I found it online, ordered it (from Amazon, of course,) and a package of small chunks of chhurpi arrived a few days later. Weird little pieces. Hard, small cubes. Is this edible?
Verdict? At first, it was like having a Lego 2 x 2 brick in my mouth. It sat nestled in the side of my cheek for quite some time and would not soften. I popped it into a cup of warm water and let it sit for hours. Afterward, I tried to bite it and my teeth left not a single mark on the piece. I didn’t want to break a tooth on cheese, so I needed to rethink this taste test.
The next day, a writer friend of mine came over to visit. Anna (https://justahoyler.weebly.com) was willing to experiment with me between working on our individual writing projects. We placed two pieces of chhurpi in teacups filled with boiling water. An hour later, the cheese was still rock hard, but there was a sort of bland taste with a slight smoky flavor floating in our mouths. Determine to sample more than the essence of this yak milk cheese, we boiled two pieces for over an hour and a half. After we let it cool slightly, we were each able to make indents with our teeth and scrape some shavings off to eat. If you imagine fine flakes of beeswax with a hint of earthy smokiness, you will successfully envision the taste of chhurpi. I was hoping the yak milk would be very distinct. It was not to be.
I don’t think I will add chhurpi to my list of cheeses to regularly have on hand, but I’m glad I tried the hardest cheese in the world. It certainly lived up to its title. I still have some pieces, so there will be more experimentation. Maybe I should soak additional chunks and then heat them in the oven to see if that breaks the hardness code.
I will conquer this cheese. Stay tuned.
Thanks for reading.