Coach Farm Triple Cream: Creamy Goat Goodness

Coach Farm Triple Cream is a lovely cheese that marries a pleasant goat cheese flavor with a luxurious texture.  This cheese was an instant hit at our house.

But, it took some effort from Coach Farm to get us there.  A few weeks back, we tried their Triple Cream cheese and posted our evaluation.  Some folks at Coach Farm read our review, recognized that the cheese had gone south, and offered to send us a new cheese so that we could taste it at its optimum.

Our first evaluation of Coach Farm Triple Cream reminds me that evaluating cheeses is akin to judging pedigree dogs: how does one know how good a cheese or dog is if one doesn’t know its standard?  As cheese-tasting novices, we know what we like but we don’t pretend to know how a cheese ought to taste.  Cheeses have many flavors and scents, and for the average eater it is difficult to determine which are intended by the cheese’s producer and which are the byproduct of its handling.

Our second chance with Coach Farm’s Triple Cream was much appreciated: we tasted a completely different cheese.

Coach Farm’s Triple Cream is farmstead produced in the Hudson Valley area of New York. It is a hand-crafted, pasteurized goat’s milk cheese. It is aged for 4-5 weeks before market.

The small dome-shaped cheese has a pure white rind.   The rind’s surface shows wrinkles from its wrapper, but feels velvety smooth.   The interior paste is creamy white.  There is a thick band of translucent paste beneath the rind, with a  more chalky interior core.

Coach Farm Triple Cream has lovely flavor.  It is tangy and tart like a good chevre.  Yet, we also tasted some sweetness in the translucent paste closer to the rind.  The cheese’s texture is thick, smooth and very creamy.  This cheese has excellent mouth feel.

Brillat Savarin: Rich and Luxurious

Brillat Savarin is a sure-fire crowd pleaser.  It is a luscious cheese that feels decadent yet has a simple appearance that belies its luxuriousness.  This is a fantastic cheese.

Brillat Savarin is a triple cream, bloomy rind cheese from the Ile-de-France region of France.  It is made from pasteurized cow’s milk and additional cream to achieve a 75% fat content.  It comes to market young and in a small disc format that allows the cheese to continue ripening as it matures.

Brillat Savarin

Brillat Savarin looks like a petite cheese pie.  It has a thin yellow-white rind that shows lines and indentations from its cheese mold.  The interior paste is milky white and looks like whipped butter.  To the touch, the paste is very soft and wet.

Brillat Savarin has a sweet aroma that is wheaty and a bit like fresh bread.  The rind has a clean mushroom aroma.

The consistency of Brillat Savarin is extremely creamy.  The interior paste of our sample had a solid consistency similar to a chevre, yet the paste closer to the rind was more like thick yogurt.  This cheese was easily spreadable.

Brillat Savarin has a relatively mild flavor.  It is milky and pleasantly sour.  There is also a buttery sweetness to the cheese.  Its sour flavor lasts long on the tongue.  The rind has a distinct bloomy rind flavor that nicely balances the paste’s flavors.

This cheese was a no-brainer at my house.  My kids are partial to triple cream and double cream cheeses, so this was an easy sell.  Both juvenile tasters liked this cheese and would be pleased to see it again.

Although this cheese was much loved, it was messy.  Our sample was at a beautiful point of ripeness, yet it was sloppy on the plate and collapsed under knife pressure.  This is a cheese for a casual meal and would work better served in individual portions rather than placed on a communal plate.

Notes on purchasing:  We purchased Brillat Savarin at Whole Foods (San Francisco).  Our sample was a quarter wedge of a whole cheese and was pre-wrapped.

Delice de Bourgogne: A Creamy Start

Delice de Bourgogne is a triple cream cheese from France made of cow’s milk.  The sample we tried had an ivory gooey interior with a mottled white rind.  During our tasting we talked most about its creamy texture, rather than its flavor or scent.

Our portion of Delice de Bourgogne was ripe, yet it gave off very little odor.  Ben suggested that its scent was a bit tangy, like a ripe orange.  Jacob detected no scent.

The cheese had an initial tangy taste and a sweeter aftertaste.  The flavor was not strong at all and didn’t create a passionate response.

The texture, however, created quite a buzz.  The cheese spread easily on bread, much like cake icing.  Both Ben and Jacob described the cheese as almost liquid and

Delice de Bourgogne

pliable.  Its consistency resembles whipped cream.  It had really good mouth feel.

We all liked it and would buy it again, however, because of its texture I wouldn’t recommend taking this on a picnic.