Name: Seahive Cheese
Brand: Beehive Cheese Company
Place of Purchase: Wheatsfield Organic Co-op in Ames, Iowa
Country/Region of Origin: Utah
Price in Iowa: $18.78/pound
Milk: pasteurized cow
Processing: sharp cheddar processing with sea and mineral salt, plus wildflower honey, rubbed onto the rind
Texture: semi-firm
Color: straw yellow
Rind: Rubbed with salt and honey (see photo)
Aroma: mild dairy, sweet
Taste: extra sharp, sweet, complex salt flavors
Mouth feel: a nice firm paste, moist without being crumbly
Notes: The Beehive Cheese Company was founded by a pair of lawyers, who gave up their litigious lifestyle to save the local creamery. Now, they make artisan cheeses by hand and play with untested flavor combinations. This SeaHive Cheese is one such experiment. The added sweetness of the Utah wildflower honey would have been enough, adding a delicate sweetness to the cheese. But the use of the mineral "seabed salt" increases the complexity of this cheese a thousandfold. Since sea salt is actually a dozen or more different kinds of salt (as opposed to table salt which is just sodium chloride salt), using mineral salt adds other ionic components to the flavor profile. Since tastebuds are essentially ion and molecular detectors, novel signals are sent to the brain from the potassium, calcium and magnesium ions. This creates a very complex and unique flavor profile that will make any taster pause and savor this cheese. Beehive also makes several other cheddars with unique rubs that are worth trying (like their barely buzzed espresso-rubbed cheese).
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