Despite cheese's presence in nearly every cuisine in the world, East Asian food in general rarely includes cheese. It's something you don't really think about until you realize how surprising it is, especially compared to our cheese-centric, artery-clogging American diet. Think of traditional Japanese, Korean, and Chinese restaurants. There is no cheese. They are cheeseless and lacking any semblance of cheese.
China may be the hardest place in the world to sell cheese, as there has not been dairy in the mainstream Chinese diet for centuries — no butter, no milk, no cheese, nothing.
Why Is China The Hardest Place in The World to Sell Cheese?
China's historical distaste for cheese
In Chinese culture, cheese consumption was historically limited to nomadic tribes living on the fringes of society who were generally viewed as outsiders or barbarians. So back then, eating cheese was associated with an unsavory lifestyle. And that connotation stuck with the food till semi-recently, when Western cuisine started infiltrating mainstream Asian culture. In much of East Asia this was the traditional way they looked at cheese, the stereotype stuck, and it worked to dissuade the country from relying on cheese as a food staple.
But there are more factors that eliminated cheese from East Asian diets beyond the risk of being socially uncouth.
Wilson Tang, who owns the famous NYC dim sum house Nom Wah, considers Chinese treatment of cows to be a main, understated force in the lack of dairy in China specifically.
"Cows were traditionally used as tools for work," he said, "and oftentimes villages would have very few animal resources at hand. So they couldn't exactly use animals they need for farming purposes to create milk for cheese."
Which makes sense. But the biggest reason Asian cultures don't regularly incorporate cheese into their cooking is probably because so many East Asians are lactose intolerant. In fact, they're drastically more likely to be lactose intolerant than Westerners. Ninety percent of the population is said to be lactose intolerant. And so many East Asians are lactose intolerant because of a lack of exposure to cheese. It's a vicious cycle. But it started somewhere.
But Chinese Like Eating Cheese in Some Other Ways.
Chinese people do eat cheese! In fact, modern Chinese people are more and more fond of choosing foods made with cheese, especially those people who live in large urban areas like Beijing, Shenzhen, and Shanghai. Cheese in China is doing very, very well!
Unlike many people from western countries, like Europe and America, who more enjoy directly eating natural artisanal cheese, Chinese people prefer processed cheese which is the result of melting and mixing different natural cheeses together with oil and food additives.
Pizza, for example, contains cheese. Theo Spierings, chief executive of Fonterra, a New Zealand dairy producer, said pizza’s popularity was driving up demand for cheese across Asia. Supermarkets in big cities are starting to put blocks of cheese on display. And China’s imports of cheese rose 70 percent from 2009 to 2014, according to Mintel, a market research company.
Since the smell and taste of the natural cheese are hard to be accepted by most of the Chinese people, this kind of processed cheese characterized by its lightened taste and ease of use is getting more and more popular among the local consumers in China nowadays.
Popular Chinese Foods with Cheese
When most western people consider cheese the major ingredient in their daily diets, Chinese people treat it more like a snack.
People love snacks and beverages made with cheese, or included cheese flavour, such as milk tea or fruit drink covered with cream and cheese mix, cheese flavoured biscuits, cheese flavoured ice cream, etc.
Following are the most represented ones:
Chinese Rushan Cheese
Chinese cuisine is not known for its use of dairy, but there are a few groups that have been making cheese in the country for centuries.
One of these cheeses is rushan, made by Bai people who live in the Yunnan province, in South Western China. Because of its shape, it’s also called “milk fan”.
Rushan is made from cow’s milk and it’s a lot like mozzarella or even burrata. Instead of eating it fresh, it’s stretched and dried, and the dry cheese is deep fried and scattered with sugar.
Chinese Rubing
Also from South Western China, Rubing is another Chinese traditional cheese cuisine, made from goat’s milk that only can be found in Yunnan province.
Lightly fried Rubing with a milky taste is always popular to those foreign travellers, bring some western flavours in eastern countries.
Cheese fish ball
Cheese fish ball is one of the most classic ingredients for hotpot among Chinese communities, especially for southern people. A lot of people tend to enjoy one or two when they’re having hotpot.
You just need to put the fish balls in the hotpot and wait for around 5 to 10 minutes. After one bite, you can see the melting cheese flowing out of the fish ball and the cheese is tasted mildly salted and soft.
Cheese tea
It may sound weird to foreign people, but cheese tea is a crazy popular drink in China. People are willing to line up for hours on end to get their hands on some!
It is an iced tea that can be made from many tea varieties, from oolong to green tea, topped with a mousse-like dairy layer an inch or two thick. The dairy layer is the soul of cheese tea, which is usually made of cream cheese and milk.
Finding Quality Cheese in China
When foreign cheese started to enter the Chinese market in the 1990’s, due to logistics restrictions and inconvenience only processed slices were suitable for storage and transport around China. Therefore a lot of people in China think real cheese is sweet and plastic since that is what they are used to.
Therefore it stands to reason that most of the imported cheese in China is mass produced and highly processed with low prices being the major selling point. Any cheese that might be considered quality, artisanal or handcrafted is typically too expensive to be considered every day cheese and typically has a flavour or style that is highly alien to locals.
Big name supermarkets charging the equivalent of double or triple the price that a cheese would be available in it’s country of origin and a handful of pseudo-delicatessens buying bulk catering size slabs and repacking in China for retail sales (often in a grey area of legality) at vast markups, its a cheese loving consumer hell.
Finally, we have a bit of cheese heaven. Looking to buy some amazing cheeses without having to worry about their quality? Scan the QR code below to join our Cheese Club! Sold either as individual cheese or with some well paired Cheese and Wine bundles, and learn more interesting facts about cheese and wine, become part of a great community!
