Beijing Blue, Beijing Gray

No, we are not talking about the state of Beijing's skies. Instead, the colors refer to the names of French-style artisan cheeses hand-made in the Forbidden City. Sun Ye talks to a most unusual cheese maker.

He tasted his first soft French cheese at an orientation party thrown to welcome foreign students to Auvergne. It was very smelly, Liu Yang remembers, but it was also love at first bite. That was more than 10 years ago, and the affair has matured and aged into a career partnership.

He was in France to study business, but he ended up learning how to make cheeses, a craft he carried on practicing when he returned to Beijing. Le Fromager de Pekin is now popular among the city's expatriate population for its small but tastefully authentic selection of artisan cheeses, often given Chinese names such as Beijing Blue or Beijing Gray.

For such an established cheese maker, Liu keeps a modest store that also doubles up as utility space, and his production base along the city's eastern edge is decidedly low profile.

All the cutting, wrapping, tasting and socializing is conducted around a stainless steel table. There is another smaller table nearby where the trophies displayed are gifts from the cheese maker's fans and friends.

There are no more than five people employed at the fromagery, including the scholarly-looking, quietly-spoken boss and they all fit snugly into the little room.

Certainly, the room seems too small to hold in the cheese maker's ambitious plans, which includes sharing the culture of eating and enjoying cheese among his countrymen.

Apart from the herdsmen nomadic tribes to the north, most Chinese do not enjoy dairy products and some may even be lactose intolerant. But as the younger generations grow, their taste buds, weaned off designer-brand milk powders, seem to be appreciating cheeses more and more.

Liu is planning to launch a set of cheese making video courses that will help encourage true aficionados make cheese at home.

"I'll provide them with the DVD and simple utensils," he says. "And it will include the cultures and the milk powders - all done family style."

In the last couple of years, Fromager de Pekin's fan base has broadened from an almost solely expatriate audience to adventurous Chinese who initially knew nothing about specialty cheeses.

The most frequently asked questions, according to Liu, give an indication of their knowledge.

"Is cheese sweet?"

"Can I eat them directly?"

"I'm most elated if they ask if it tastes like salted duck eggs," Liu says, grinning.

Liu also found the new converts were also quick to experiment with baking and cooking and that his "Chinese customers are the best because they're not stubborn about trying new things".

That set him thinking and he soon came up with the idea of DIY cheese courses.

"DIY is the best way to really get to know something new. Who knows? It may be the next trendy thing," Liu says, showing off his business acumen, which had brought him to France in the first place.

"If you think about it, it wasn't so long ago that milk became a family staple in China."

Liu says promoting the culture of cheese is now his mission, and that's why he gives his handcrafted cheese local names such as "Beijing Blue" or "Beijing Gray" which make them immediately approachable.

"I'm never tired of explaining what French cheeses are like," he says.

Before Liu left to study business in the Auvergne region of France more than a decade ago, he had no idea what real non-processed cheese was like.

At the welcome party for overseas students, he tasted 20 different kinds of cheeses paired with French wine. His newfound love of cheese drove him into serious study and he enrolled in a professional school to learn how to make it.

When he returned to Beijing and started his own business making French artisan cheeses, Liu became the focus of attention for his products with decidedly Corsican features.

He uses the most expensive kind of milk "from cows that sleep well and eat well."

To protect his cheese babies against the heat and aridness of Beijing weather, Liu equips his cheese studio with thermometers and hydrometers.

On a warm and sandy afternoon, the studio stayed cool, humid and dim.

Before going into the fermentation room, Liu scrubs down like a surgeon, using hospital-grade brushes and soaps.

"These are my greatest fortune," he points to shelves of cheeses of different sizes, tastes and ages. His current favorite, and the most precious, is a small packet made months ago in Tibet that carries a rare flavor from the altitude.

He can recognize each cheese at a glance, fondly appreciating the cracks in a less-than-perfect but all-natural round, as well as the clean-cut looks of the perfectly formed. He proudly shows off the ash-like molds that grow on certain cheeses and gets truly spirited when he describes the final product.

If you have yet to taste the cheese-maker's products, at least you will be impressed by his great enthusiasm and love for his craft.

One of the best testimonials for his cheeses comes from Cyril Arrouard, the French executive chef of the Ritz-Carlton Financial Street, who declares that Liu makes "very good, fresh quality cheeses".

And as for those who are waiting in line to enroll in his homemade cheese courses, at least they know who they can aspire to be.

Contact the writer at sunye@chinadaily.com.cn.

Liu Yang becomes an established cheese maker by running a popular cheese store in Beijing after returning from France. Photos Provided to China Daily

Liu shows off his cheese made from Tibetan yak milk at an event in the Institut Francais in Beijing.