The Cheese Map — changelog

A map of gaps is only useful if it admits when it was wrong. Everything that changed a cell's status, closed a gap, or added an axis is recorded here, with the source that forced it.

October 2026 — the dataset revision

24 October 2026

Structure

• A dataset underneath the map. 222 named cheeses tagged on eleven axes with per-record confidence ratings. Every cheese list on the site, and any map not written by hand, is generated from it. A lint script checks the hand-written notes against it; the two agree on every cell.
• Any two axes make a map. The thirteen fixed tabs became a two-axis picker with nine starting points; 45 maps are now possible.
• Four new axes: milk treatment (raw / thermised / pasteurised), fat adjustment (skimmed → cream-enriched), ripening microbes (Geotrichum, white and blue Penicillium, smear bacteria, propionic, mixed flora) and affinage environment (cellar, natural cave, pit, skin, leaf, bark, brine, oil, marc, hay, vessel).
• Milk profiles — every axis for a single milk on one page; cheese search; permalinks to any cell; reason codes on every editorial gap (chemistry / tradition / economics / logistics / legal); a ? mark on cells whose only evidence is low-confidence tagging.
• The Texture × Mold map was retired in favour of Texture × Ripening Microbes; its notes were carried across where the categories line up.
• Gap cards cut from sixteen to ten; the other six are kept as a short list.

Gaps closed

• Bloomy-rind buffalo — Casatica di Bufala (Quattro Portoni). Was a top-listed gap. source
• Yak-milk Gruyère — Nepal's DDC has made Swiss-method cooked-curd yak cheese in Langtang since the 1950s. Was the #1 gap. source
• Pressed & cooked buffalo — Granbù (Quattro Portoni) is a cooked hard paste, minimum 8 months. source
• 100% donkey-milk cheese — Asinino Reggiano (Montebaducco, 2015), made with camel chymosin. source
• Blue yak cheese — Yak Blue (Himalayan French Cheese), Super Gold 2019. source
• Semi-soft × whey-based — was a gap while the cow row cited brunost. Established.
• Lactic × buffalo — called a gap for about an hour; Egyptian karish and mish are lactic-set buffalo cheeses. Rare. source
• Camel × bloomy — gap → rare: Chr. Hansen's "Camelbert" recipe and Kenyan trials. source
• Camel × semi-hard — gap → rare: Summer Land Camels cheddar (2019), Kamelenmelkerij Smits.

Corrections

• Granbù is aged 8+ months, not 36. The "36" in the product URL is a catalogue number.
• Berkswell is not cloth-bound. It is moulded in a kitchen colander with a natural rind; Sheep × Cloth-bound is therefore a true gap, not a thin one. source
• Washed rind × years was marked impossible. Comté, Gruyère and Beaufort are smear-ripened for their whole lives. Established.
• Cashel Blue uses vegetarian microbial rennet, not thistle. Moved; the row renamed "Thistle (cardoon) rennet". source
• Halloumi is not pasta filata — its curd is cooked in whey, not stretched.
• Hard × blue cited Stilton and Bleu d'Auvergne, neither of which is hard. Now long-aged Cabrales and Castelmagno.
• Sheep × pressed-and-cooked cited Ossau-Iraty and Abbaye de Belloc, which are pressed uncooked. Now Pecorino Romano and Sardo (semi-cooked).
• Fresh × blue cited Cambozola, which is blue and bloomy. Now Saint Agur.
• "Quadruple-cream yak" removed: triple-cream is a process (adding cream), not a property of rich milk.
• An unverifiable claim that Stepladder Creamery won an ACS award for a cloth-bound goat cheddar was dropped.
• Camel kappa-casein corrected to 3–4% of casein (was 2–4%). source
• Hard chhurpi, xinomizithra, ricotta salata, dried shanklish fill several cells previously marked "unlikely" (hard × acid-set, hard × whey, yak × extra-hard, semi-hard × acid). They get hard by drying rather than ripening; the cells are now Rare with that explanation rather than Unlikely.
• Yak milk fat stated as "~6.5% (5.5–9%)" rather than 7%; Pule price given as a range of press figures rather than one number.
• "Impossible" → "Unlikely" throughout, with a definition: chemistry argues strongly against it, not a proof.
• Seventeen cells upgraded from Rare to Established where the dataset holds several established cheeses (sheep extra-hard, sheep pasta filata, goat washed-rind, block Cheddar aged for years, Brie de Meaux at 6–8 weeks, and others). Cow × Ash downgraded to Rare (Morbier's ash is an internal line).
• Cells that rested on phrases like "some Middle Eastern experiments" now either name a product or are honestly marked gap: acid-set sheep, cold-acid camel, pure mare's-milk, Horse × fresh.

Deliberately not tagged

• Queso de Valdeón's sycamore leaves are absent from the PGI specification — traditional presentation, not a ripening environment. spec
• Rogue River Blue's grape leaves go on after aging — a finish. spec sheet
• "Alpage" is where Beaufort is made (above 1,500 m), not where it is aged; dropped as an environment. cahier des charges
• "Cave-aged" on a label is never enough; natural cave is tagged only when a specification or credible source names one.

April 2026 — first version

21 April 2026

• Seven hand-written maps, 249 cells, seven gap cards.