Kaffeost

Appearance & taste

A wheel of Kaffeost usually weighs 150 to 500 g and is 1 to 5 cm thick; the shape does not matter much, because the cheese is cut into pieces anyway. The fairly dry rind is formed by drying, smoking or baking and makes it keep well and easy to divide. It is milky white in the variant from the mountains, yellowish and sooty in the smoked variant and golden yellow with dark brown spots in the baked variant from the north-east. The fat content is 25 to 50 %: lowest with goat’s milk, highest with reindeer’s milk. At most 1 % salt is added.

The texture is often rubbery, and the taste is mild and rounded and clearly reminiscent of boiled milk; when fresh it reveals which animal the milk came from. Kaffeost made from reindeer’s milk is smoked, squeaks when chewed cold and tastes mildly of pure milk with smoky notes. The dried goat’s milk variant is white, mild, slightly salty and slightly sour; baked, it gets a crisp rind and hints of butter and caramel, smoked a smoky note. Kaffeost made from cow’s milk is baked, pale yellow with dark spots, grainy and elastic, and tastes of pure milk with a certain sweetness.

In hot coffee the cheese becomes warm and soft, melts and, according to the specification, takes on a delicate coffee flavour.

Production

The milk comes from the area. Domestic animals must be on pasture there for at least two months a year; goats are often outdoors, reindeer all year round. Over the year at least half of the feed consists of green fodder and cereals from the area. Cereals and other concentrates may be bought in if they do not grow there; they come mainly from southern Sweden.

The dairies decide when the curd is formed, how finely it is cut and how long it is stirred afterwards. The surface is then dried, smoked or baked until it shows the desired result. Milk production, coagulation and smoking or baking take place in the area. The cheese may only be frozen there and shortly after production, because by its nature it is eaten fresh.

Origin & history

The area covers the northernmost parts of Sweden: sparsely populated, with extensive forests and marshland, long, bitterly cold winters and the Arctic Circle, beyond which the sun does not set for days around midsummer. The light summer nights make plants grow strongly; among other things, rosebay willowherb, in Swedish Mjölkört (“milk herb”), serves as pasture. Arable land for cereals is scarce. Cows are kept mainly in the south and east of the area, reindeer increasingly towards the west and north.

According to the specification, Kaffeost was a way of saving the abundance of summer for the winter. Because food was often frozen in the harsh climate, it was eaten in boiling broth; with coffee, which spread in the region several centuries ago, boiled coffee took the place of the broth. The farms were small and far apart, and there were no shared dairies as in southern Sweden, so small wheels were made instead of large, pressed cheeses.

Traditionally Kaffeost was only made from about May to September or October; reindeer’s and goat’s milk Kaffeost are seasonal to this day, while the cow’s milk variant is available all year round. Sami nomads hung the cheese in the smoke hole of their tent, the lavvu, where it dried and was smoked; settled farmers baked it in the oven. The regular milking of reindeer gradually ended in Sweden around 1930, and in the 20th century goats in many cases took over their role as dairy animals in Sami culture.