Devon: Centre Of The Cheese Universe

Devon is my home.

It’s where I was born, where I grew up, and where James Mann and I started The Cheese Shed in 2006. I’d been a regular customer of our delicatessen in Bovey Tracey and had become fascinated with the cheeses of this county (such variety! And all from right here!). In due course that led me to start an online mail order cheese business (which today includes a shop and a cafe) - but simply buying and enjoying all those local cheeses as a customer was where it all started.

Our five Devon dairies cover a really wide range. For a start you have an internationally-known cheddar made by Quicke’s of Newton St Cyres (which I especially love in the 24 month ‘Vintage’ version). There are ‘bries’ and ‘camemberts’ from two dairies: Devon Maid is from Curworthy Cheese near Okehampton, while Sharpham Cheese really specialise in this style and were the first to produce British versions in the 1960s.

In addition to a cheddar and a brie, a classic cheeseboard needs one more thing of course - a blue - and in Ticklemore Cheese we have a dairy which has specialised in making blues (and only blues) for decades now. So you can imagine how good those cheeses are! Their trio of offerings comprises Devon Blue (cow), Harbourne Blue (goat) and - my longtime passion - Beenleigh Blue (a sheeps’ milk blue inspired by Roquefort - pictured top right).

Devon has lots more cheese to offer than that, however. There’s an exciting clutch of goats’ cheeses from the newest maker in the county - Stone Tree Dairy, based near Dartmouth. With the milk of their 150-strong herd, they make four wonderful cheeses which, when they first appeared last year, were instantly different from anything else available locally, including - from the extreme ends of the spectrum - a dreamy super-soft Fresh Goats Curd and the hard, dry, powerful, long-matured Redlap (below, middle).

Flavoured cheeses - ones with other things added - are (I know this as a cheesemonger) not everyone’s cup of tea. I love them though, whether in the form of Sharpham’s semi-soft Rustic With Garlic & Chives (bottom left), or in the quartet of offerings from Curworthy: Dartmoor Chilli, Simply Cumin, Chipple (with spring onions, shown bottom right) and Meldon (with ale and mustard).

Over time, dairies often branch out from what they’re successful at. So Quicke’s, who are very much hard-cheese people, have over the years moved sideways from cheddar to making a ‘red Leicester’ (Devonshire Red) and a ‘double Gloucester’ (Double Devonshire); they also make a smoked cheddar and a lovely hard goat. And Sharpham, who started off with the brie/camembert family, have gone on to devise other cheeses which have the same fluffy white rind, like dreamy soft Cremet and the sheeps’ milk Washbourne.

But some of our favourites - perhaps unsurprisingly - are cheeses which have been developed through conversations between makers and ourselves, and which are now exclusive to us. Bovey Straight (top left) is our best seller. Matured in our temperature-controlled shop, it wins on both dry, crumbly texture and its great golden, glowing flavour. They’ve also just started making a soft smoked goat for us, which we call Trendlebere.

Last but not least, Sharpham provide us with a totally luxurious soft fresh cheese which we sell in five flavoured versions: Pepperdon, Alepperdon, Drogo, Zaki and Shaptor. These all come to us ‘naked’ and then we roll them in various things. Beautiful as well as tasty! What are they flavoured with? In order: crushed peppercorns, Aleppo pepper, fennel pollen, za'atar and - in the case of Shaptor - quite a few different things!