Tuesday 13 November 2012

Barkham Blue - discus shaped nugget of cheese gold

Dad came over to the new house last weekend. He had been on one of those little mid-week trips away with mum to the Cotswolds. I already knew he had a little present for me because he rang me one afternoon out of a pleasant conversation with the owners of the Cotswold Cheese Company. He said they had a nice conversation about cheese (see what I've driven him to!) and had recommended a couple of blues that might take my fancy.



One of these was the Barkham Blue - named after the town where its producers - the Two Hoots Cheese Company - base themselves in Berkshire. Not too far away from me actually! It is made with milk from Channel Island cows, which is where it gets its rich and creamy flavour from.

It comes in the shape of a massive cheese discus, or massive mini-babybel (which I guess would not make it a 'mini'-babybel. A huge-daddybel maybe!? I digress). There is no correlation here between shape and flavour.... but it looks cool.

It reminds me quite a bit of the Cornish Blue that I have reviewed before. It is not hugely pungent, which would make it more attractive to the non-blue crowd and as I mentioned above, the cheese has a real creamy aftertaste and a really smooth and silky texture. Beautiful. Like cleansing your mouth with dairy gold! The Cotswold Cheese Company obviously knew what they were talking about so I couldn't wait to have a go at the other cheese dad had brought back. For now though I enjoyed this. I give it a 9. Definitely worth a try.