Paipa ‘De Origen’

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Paipa cheese has earned the D.O classification.
Paipa cheese has earned the D.O classification.

If you tend to examine the labels of specialty foods, you’ll know the Italian term Denominazione di origine controlata (“Controlled designation of origin”) for classifying olive oils and other produce to a very specific region or town. The same applies to other European member states – especially France – where most wines fall under the Appellation d’origine contrôlée (AOC).

If you drink a Sancerre or Saint-Émilion, you are right there in select vineyards of the Loire and Bordeaux. And the same applies to cheese. A Saint Agur can only herald from the village of Beauzac in the Auvergne. Blue Stilton, the ‘King of British cheeses’ cannot be produced outside Stilton’s historical area of influence: Leicestershire, Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire.

One village nestled along a lake in eastern Boyacá recently earned the global distinction of ‘Denominacion de Origen’ (D.O) for producing through-out centuries, the creamy, granular ‘Paipa cheese’: and the same one which is dunked ceremoniously into steaming hot chocolate across most of Colombia’s Andean departments. Many foreigners to this country cringe at the thought of “wasting” a fine cheese in a cup of chocolate. But tradition tends to rein in skeptics, and there is no other cheese made in the country which has made such a name for itself at home, and now, abroad.

Historians claim ‘Paipa’ cheese began to be produced in the Sotaquirá valley as early as the 17th century with the arrival of first Normande cows. The valley which connects the central Boyacá highlands with the eastern plains skirts Tota lake, and was popular with traders heading to Los Llanos who would need to stock up in the valley with cheese, cacao and maize.

As a much-visited resort town thanks to bubbling hot thermal springs which are known to have curative powers, Paipa is also the epicenter for chee- semongers, and most Paipa cheese which ends up stocked on your supermarket shelf is produced on small farms scattered throughout the Sotaquira valley. So next time you are heading east of Tunja, towards Diutama, remember that this emerald-green valley ranks amongst the finest in the world for cheese production and it has to specify ‘Paipa’ on the tag. Anything else, is not fit for your salad or hot chocolate.

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