Food · Kyanjin Gompa
Visit the Kyanjin cheese factory
See where Langtang's yak and nak milk becomes firm yellow cheese, at a small dairy founded on Swiss methods introduced in the 1950s, and buy a block to carry down the valley.
The cheese factory sits at the edge of the village, a plain building that is easy to miss. In the main season, herders bring milk down from the kharka in metal cans, and it is heated, set with rennet, cut, pressed into moulds and left to age. The method follows the Swiss techniques introduced to Langtang in the 1950s by Werner Schulthess.
If staff are working when you visit, you may see the copper vats and presses and the wooden shelves of ageing wheels. If not, the shop still sells cheese by weight. Langtang cheese is mild and firm, a little like a young mountain cheese, and keeps well at altitude.
Back in the village, bakeries use it on pizza, in sandwiches and in apple pie variations. It is one of the few foods on the trail made entirely in the valley, from the grass on the pastures to the finished block.
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Questions
Who started the Langtang cheese factory?
Swiss cheese-making was introduced to Langtang in the 1950s by Werner Schulthess, as part of early Swiss support for Nepal's mountain dairies. The cheese has been made in the valley ever since, now under Nepali management. Langtang cheese became known in Kathmandu bakeries and shops.
Is the Kyanjin cheese factory always open?
Production is seasonal and depends on milk from the summer herds, so the factory is most active from about late spring to autumn. Opening hours are informal. Even when cheese is not being made, you can often buy it in the village. Ask your lodge owner who has the key that day.
Is yak cheese made from yak milk?
Strictly, it comes from the nak, the female yak, and from yak-cow crossbreeds such as the dzomo, since the yak is the male animal. In the Himalaya, yak cheese is the common name. It is firm, mild and slightly nutty, quite different from chhurpi, the very hard dried cheese chewed as a snack.
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