3 of the most expensive cheeses in the world
We don’t mind paying more for cheese at a specialist cheese shop than at a budget supermarket. There are few things that make us as happy as a special cheese, and cheesemakers who put time and love into their craft deserve to be rewarded for it too, right? Still, we can’t ignore the fact that the cheeses below are very, very expensive…
Whether they will ever fit your budget, only you can say. At least one advantage is that we live in Europe, so these European cheeses are a little more readily available to us and the import costs won’t be too alarming (if they are even imported to the Netherlands). For the rest of the world, these cheeses are truly exclusive—and therefore eye-wateringly expensive.
Enjoy some champagne with your cheese
According to Chef’s Pencil, these are the most expensive cheeses in the world, which might pair very well with champagne while you’re at it (because did you know that champagne and cheese can be a golden combination?):
Pule
Pule is made from donkey’s milk (and goat’s milk), and if it was good enough for Cleopatra, we can certainly imagine that it could produce a particularly expensive cheese. Pule is made by just one cheesemaker in the entire world, in a nature reserve in Serbia. What does the true enthusiast apparently pay for a pound of Pule? Around five hundred euros per pound. What?? It has to do with the fact that the few donkeys providing the milk produce very little of it—and certainly not all year round.
Moose cheese
Donkey’s milk already sounded unusual, but did you know that cheese is also made from moose milk? For that, you have to go to Sweden, where four types of cheese are made from the milk of just a handful of female moose at the Älgens Hus moose farm: two blue cheeses, a white-mold cheese, and a feta-like cheese. Ultra-exclusive, so interested buyers sometimes have to be prepared to pay around 500 euros per pound.
Extra-aged Bitto Storico
When a cheese importer once managed to sell extra-aged Italian Bitto Storico in Hong Kong, it earned him around 150 euros per pound. What makes this cheese from Lombardy so special? It is a cheese that matures for an exceptionally long time, and is made by only 12 cheesemakers in the world, all in Lombardy. The extra-aged variety is rare, but the slightly ‘younger’ versions are still affordable for ordinary mortals.
Read also:
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- They’ve done it again: gold for this Swiss Gruyère, the best cheese in the world
- Close your eyes when paying: this is the most expensive pizza in the world
