This Test Kitchen post comes from Krista Harper, a freelance writer and news radio show director who lives on the chilly Canadian shores of Lake Superior. Krista has become a rabid consumer of tea in the last several years (it is her belief that living in a cold climate will quickly drive anyone to drink more than their fair share of hot beverages). Working part-time at her local David’s Tea has done nothing to slow her growing thirst. Krista also admits to having spent up to a third of her otherwise modest grocery budget on cheese – so it only seems natural for her to experiment with pairing two of her favorite things!

I conducted this taste-test with the following teas:
-White
-Green (pan-fired, Chinese-style)
-Earl Grey
-Yerba Maté (a caffeinated herb from South America)
-Sleigh Ride (a tart, fruity, hibiscus-based herbal tea made by David’s Tea)

With tea steeped and seven different cheeses at hand, I was ready to try some pairings. Which teas complemented (or clashed!) with each type of cheese? Read on…

Provolone
The most delicate of the cheeses in the experiment, provolone has a creamy texture and a slightly tangy finish. I thought it would make a perfect fit with the light, refreshing taste of white tea. Nope. Even provolone cheese overpowered the gentle flavor of the white tea. However, the medium-bodied, earthy, almost hay-like flavor of the South American favorite yerba maté, was a slam dunk when paired with provolone. I would suggest pairing provolone with other medium-bodied teas such as oolong, Darjeeling black tea or rooibos.

Colby Jack
This mild, buttery cheese was hard to match. White tea seemed to be the natural choice, but as I found with provolone, it didn’t work out the way I had thought. I found this cheese went much better with green tea. A nice, smooth oolong might also suit it.

Sharp Cheddar
Full-bodied with a nice zing, this aged cheese paired best with green tea, which had just enough lively earthiness to balance it out. It also paired well with yerba maté. For a unique experience, I’d suggest trying this cheese with lapsang souchong (a very smoky black tea, which is dried over a fire) or a milder cup of Russian caravan tea (which is a blend of lapsang souchong, oolong, and black Keemun tea).

Special Reserve Extra Sharp Cheddar
This creamy cheddar’s strong flavor called for something either really earthy or strong. Nothing I had prepared worked very well with it. As with sharp cheddar, I’d suggest trying it with a smoky cup of lapsang souchong. Perhaps a good, earthy assam black tea or a pu’erh tea would also balance it out.

Pepper Jack
This cheese threw a bit of a wrench in the tasting. Would the zesty-yet-mild flavor of Pepper Jack go with any tea at all? I love me some Pepper Jack on a sandwich, but with tea? Turns out that yes, it can be paired with tea, but the robust, dark teas were out of the question. This cheese’s kick demands a light, cooling tea. The white tea paired well, and a Japanese green tea or an oolong might also work. Try icing the tea, and it would almost certainly be a match made in heaven.

Vintage White Medium Cheddar
This was my favorite cheese of the bunch. Creamy and smooth, with a distinctive flavor, the Vintage White Medium was also one of the hardest cheeses to pair. Surprisingly, fruity Sleigh Ride, a hibiscus-based tea, made the best match. Hibiscus-based teas are tart and sweet, in the vein of cranberry juice, or red wine… and Vintage White Medium Cheddar pairs well with fruit and wine, so maybe it’s not such a surprise that the pair complemented each other so well. I would recommend trying this one with any fruity teas – I think a peach or lemon-flavored tea might be especially delicious.

Smoked Medium Cheddar
This was my other favorite cheese in the tasting. The smoked hickory flavor of this moist cheddar was hard to pair, however. Since this cheese has so much going on, it’s hard to justify pairing it with anything more complex than a nice delicate white tea. The other teas I had on hand just seemed to distract from the delicious smoky flavor of the cheese. The other teas I might try to pair with this one are a creamy oolong or a Japanese green tea such as gyokuro (Japanese green teas are usually steamed, giving them a fresher, grassier flavor than their pan-fired Chinese counterparts). Or pair lapsang souchong with this cheese if you’re up for a truly smoky experience!

The final verdict
The results of the cheese and tea tasting experiment weren’t what I had anticipated. While I expected the stronger cheese flavors to pair best with stronger-tasting teas, it didn’t always work that way – and the lighter cheeses didn’t pair especially well with the lighter teas, either. I found that all the cheeses paired at least fairly well (or better) with green tea and yerba mate. Earthy flavors and cheese just seem to match well! And, word to the wise, earl grey clashed with everything. Bleh!

If you’d like to try this at home, I’d recommend making sure you have a good blend of light, medium, and full-bodied teas to experiment with, as well as a diverse spread of cheeses. Work from mildest to strongest cheeses, and give your taste buds a break between cheeses with some water.

Would you try this at home? What kinds of cheese would you pair with which tea?

By Tillamook

Great sandwiches come from great ingredients

Being in the last stretch of the Loaf Love Tour, sometimes we Brand Ambassadors need a little boost to lift our spirits. I found my boost in a grilled cheese sandwich.

It all started a few weeks ago at the Los Angeles Zoo. I was one of the fortunate Brand Ambassadors who was working our Mommy Blogger event, but most importantly, I was a judge at the grilled cheese competition. At these Mommy Blogger events, families from the area come and enjoy the great taste of Tillamook cheese, play some games with the Brand Ambassadors, and most importantly, create their own grilled cheese sandwiches that are judged on taste, presentation, and creativeness. I was fortunate enough to be one of these judges. After 13 amazing grilled cheese sandwiches, I thought to myself, “I’m going to create the greatest grilled cheese sandwich in the history of grilled cheese sandwiches!” Thus gave birth to Dandy Andy’s Cheesetastic Voyage.

Ingredients
Tillamook Butter
2 slices of Tillamook Vintage White Medium Cheddar and two slices of Tillamook Sharp Cheddar
2 slices of bread – any kind will do, but I chose French bread
Guacamole. Freshly made or bought at a store. I chose to make my own guacamole using 1 avocado, half of a small onion, half of a tomato, LOTS of jalapenos, salt & pepper, some Chili powder and cayenne pepper, and a pinch of cumin.
About 4 ounces of chicken breast, cut into small slices
4 pieces of bacon

Directions
First, you want to bake the chicken until it is done, and cut it up in little chunks. Next, cook the bacon until it is crispy enough to your likings. Now it is time to spread the outsides of the bread with delicious Tillamook butter, none of that 65% vegetable margarine stuff. Spread the insides of the bread with the guacamole. Add two slices of Tillamook Vintage White Medium Cheddar to one side of the bread and two slices of Tillamook Sharp Cheddar to the other side. Add the chicken and bacon, and away we go. Grill each side of this perfect sandwich on medium heat for about 3 to 4 minutes per side, and your grilled cheese sandwich should look similar to this deliciousness:

I loaf this cheesetastic combination

This sandwich has everything: protein from the meat, healthy fats from the avocado, carbs from the bread for energy, and of course the scrumptiousness of Tillamook’s all natural cheeses. Just look how happy I am as I take a bite of this delicious sandwich!

A mouthful of awesomeness!

If you are ever in a need of a pick-me-up and want a meal that has been defined as a-mouth-full-of-awesome, I’d definitely recommend Dandy Andy’s Cheesetastic Voyage.

By Andy

Ready to smoke some cheese!

One of my favorite Tillamook Cheese varieties is the Vintage White Smoked Extra Sharp Cheddar. It is the perfect combination of smokey flavor and creamy, sharp cheddar. So, I thought why not try to smoke my own cheese using appliances I already have? Tillamook uses a cold smoker and unfortunately I don’t have one, so I was forced to use my Traeger smoker. When smoking meat, these are the best smokers available, but we learned they are not quite as good smoking a product that can melt. I went into this experiment hoping that I could get it to work and I’d be able to smoke my own cheese. However, after trying a few combinations of things, it looks like I’ll just have to keep buying my smoked cheese from the experts. Here’s what I did though – try it out and let us know if you come up with any other methods that will work better than mine.

I tried to smoke 4 different flavors – Medium, Special Reserve Extra Sharp, Pepper Jack, and Vintage White Medium. I was wanting to see if the age of the cheese would actually effect the ability of the cheese to be smoked. This was not a scientific experiment, but it appeared that the sharper the cheese, the more it picked up the smokey flavor. Why do you think that is?

I also tried a few sizes – 8oz, 1lb and 2lb. This was to determine if it was possible to infuse flavor into a baby loaf of cheese, or if the cheese needs to be thinner to pick-up the smoke. I punctured the baby loaf in order to allow the smoke to penetrate, but it didn’t flavor as well as the thinner 8oz and 1lb loafs. The benefit of the 2lb loaf though is that it had the fortitude to not melt down as much as a thinner loaf on the hot smoker. To combat the hot smoker, I tried to create a semi-cold smoker by turning the Traeger on and off – trying to keep it as cool and smoke filled as possible. Unfortunately the smoke just didn’t billow until it was hot enough to melt the cheese.

There was definitely some smoke…unfortunately there was also some melt.

Overall, I was able to create a smokey flavor in the cheeses. However, the trade-off was that the texture and shape of the cheese was completely lost. Reheating cheese and then cooling it back down is a bad idea. If you have a cold smoker, this could be done, but I don’t recommend using a hot smoker. At the end of the day, the flavor was obtained, but the texture and consistency of Tillamook smoked cheeses was not. I’ll be buying my smoked cheese from now on!

By Matt