Sea Change

|See; Chey-nj|

With its dappled aquamarine rind, Mystic Cheese’s Sea Change is about as rare as pirate’s treasure: a stracchino-style cheese that’s externally blue. Its mesmerizing surface boasts a mottled pattern of blue and white mold that evokes ocean waves turning to foam as they crash. Smelling salty and damp like a cave on a jetty, it yields notes of hops and mushroom confit in its dense, creamy, gooey paste.

In a previous iteration, Sea Change was an ivory-colored wheel. But in 2017, the company decided that the cheese needed, well, a sea change! To curds of cows’ milk soured with yogurt cultures, Mystic’s makers now add a cocktail of yeasts that set the stage for the blueing process. Since the ripening room contains other blues whose molds spread, Sea Change needs no additional spores. Finally, the blocks mature in a shipping pod aging room for three weeks.

Buttery and just a little briny, we think Sea Change tastes magical with some added sweetness. Try a drizzle of honey or, as Mystic Cheese co-founder Jason Sobocinski suggests, snack with a chunk of it on a cocoa biscuit and a dollop of strawberry jam.

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