World's best cheese- Brie de Meaux

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Brie de Meaux prides a sweetness that mounts it on the throne of world's cheese market for at least 700 years. It delivers a very soft combination of hazelnut and fruit aromas. It is popularly known as the cheese of Kings as it was loved by Charlemagne, Charles of Orleans and even Henry IV.

Brie a soft cow's milk cheese named after Brie (a French province) is pale in colour with a slight grayish tinge, under crusty white tasteless mould, very soft and pleasing to the sense of taste. It was being manufactured outside Paris from the late 8th century. The oldest evidence is found in the chronicles of Charlemagne. The Emperor tasted the cheese in the small city of Brie in the year 774. Another illustrious event that speaks of it's legendary excellence is that of Prince de Talleyrand. In 1814, Prince de Talleyrand organized a European tournament during the Congress of Vienna where each ambassador had been invited to come from his country with the cheese of his choice. Brie de Meaux was awarded the first prize among the many and declared it "Le Roi des Fromages" ( The King of Cheeses). Today it is produced primarily in the eastern part of the Parisian basin.

Brie making

About 25 liters (6.60 gallons) of cow's milk is needed to make one Brie de Meaux cheese. Brie is produced from soft unpasteurized milk. The curd is obtained by adding rennet to raw milk and heating it to a maximum temperature of 37°C. It is then manually cast into its mould with a pelle a Brie, or Brie shovel. The 20 cm mold is filled with several thin layers of cheese and drained for at least 18 hours. The cheese is then taken out of the molds and salted, exclusively with dry salt and immunised with cheese mould and aged in a cellar for at least four weeks. The produced cheese weighs about 3 kilograms, is 35 to 40 cm in diameter and about 3 cm thick. The cheese has a fat content of around 45%. It is appropriate in a sandwich, on a cheeseboard, canape with dry fruit or with Champagne.

Recent Awards

Brie de Meaux was awarded the world's best cheese by "2007 World Cheese Award" in England. In the contest over 2,000 cheeses from around the world were evaluated on the bases of texture, aroma, looks, and taste.