Queso de Flor de Guía

Appearance & taste

The designation of origin covers three cheeses that differ in their rennet: Queso de Flor de Guía is curdled only with vegetable rennet from the dried flower heads of artichokes (Cynara cardunculus var. ferocissima and Cynara scolymus), Queso de Media Flor de Guía more than 50 % with it, Queso de Guía with animal and/or vegetable rennet or other approved enzymes. All three are cylindrical, 15 to 30 cm in diameter, 4 to 8 cm high (Flor de Guía 4 to 6 cm) and weigh 0.5 to 5 kg. The mould shows on the underside, with clear cloth marks on Flor de Guía. Semi-mature cheese (“Semicurado”) ripens for 15 to 60 days, mature cheese (“Curado”) for longer.

With short ripening the rind is thin and white to ivory, with longer ripening thicker, harder and brown. The paste of the semi-mature Flor de Guía is cream-coloured, very soft and creamy, with a very aromatic, sour and bitter flavour; when mature it becomes yellowish-brownish and hard and tastes bitter and sharp. The smell shows milky and vegetal notes of artichoke and dried fruit, and in the mouth a slight burning and an astringent note. Media Flor tastes sour and slightly sharp, sometimes with floral or roasted notes; in Queso de Guía salty and sour tones dominate, occasionally with bitter nuances. If the cheese is made from raw milk from the producer’s own flock, the label may bear the term “artesano”.

Production

At least 60 % of the milk comes from sheep of the Canarian breed, at most 40 % from Canarian cows and their crosses and at most 10 % from goats of Canarian breeds. The sheep live off the pasture, whose flora is rich in native and endemic plants, above all swards of bulbous meadow grass with clover and Poa pitardiana, and to a lesser extent also leguminous shrubs such as tagasaste and white broom. Only concentrates, mostly maize, are given as additional feed. Cows and goats are not taken out to pasture; they mainly eat fodder plants that the keepers grow in the area or gather in the fields, supplemented by concentrates.

The milk is produced from January to July, when the sheep graze in the area; the protected cheese is made only during this period. From August to December the sheep are dry and move towards the island’s summit in search of pasture, outside the area. All production steps take place in the area.

Origin & history

The area covers the municipalities of Gáldar, Moya and Santa María de Guía in north-western Gran Canaria. It is small, but because of its altitude zones it has many microclimates: Santa María de Guía faces north, Moya faces the wind and is wetter at medium and high altitudes, and Gáldar is drier below 400 m. Almost a thousand wild plant species grow in the three municipalities, about a hundred of them endemic, including many fodder plants and the artichokes from whose flowers the rennet is obtained.

According to the specification, there were flocks of Canarian breeds here before 1526. The making of “queso de flor” goes back to the Castilian population of the Guía highlands. The specification explains the survival of the tradition with the area’s isolation: for centuries only mule tracks led into the area, and the producers passed on their knowledge of cheese and rennet only to their children. Towards the end of the 19th century, a small farmers’ market for the farmers and cheesemakers from the highlands, Moya and Gáldar grew up in Guía. Today about 100 farms continue the tradition and make the cheese by hand on their farms.