Chiang Mai, Thailand

Jarutat ‘Jart’ Snidwongse Na Ayuthaya started making cheese as a request from the late Prince Bhisadej Rajani, a former chairman of Thailand's Royal Project Foundation, when he was just 25 years old. The Royal Project Foundation is a charitable organization created in the 1960’s and personally funded by His Majesty King Bhumibol Adulyadej of Thailand, to tackle poverty, reliance on the opium trade, and deforestation in mountainous or remote communities. In between applying to the Royal Project Foundation and graduating from Monash University, Australia, Jart spent seven months in a forest monastery practicing deep meditation and contemplation techniques.

He produced the requested Mozzarella di bufala with success, and hasn’t looked back since. While he admits he didn’t feel prepared to take on the task, approaching it with curiosity rather than intimidation helped him in spades. “All of (what I learned as an industrial designer) gave me the ability to transform or reverse engineer food. It’s the same methodology - you’re just changing the raw materials and you have to learn how different types of food are created.”

He credits his unique ability to approach cheese making fearlessly to the skills he learned in his former roles. “(Meditation) allows you to be really in focus, in the details. You can also get wisdom out of yourself when you look into your heart and focus on certain feelings, emotions, whatever it is. You can kind of apply that technique to anything you do, especially with food which is a high contact product composed of many little nuances of sensory qualities.”

Jartisann Cheeserie currently makes 12 to 13 local varieties, all of which have earned rave reviews from customers but tells me that his SyamisBlue variety took the longest to perfect. He called the process “super challenging” but can happily say it, and his other cheeses, is now something worthy of standing amongst the great blues from around the world.

As a former rising pop star in Thailand, (which comes at almost no surprise since he is a polymath; Jart also is a master bread maker amongst other things) he also has passion for the arts and music and likens designing cheese to internalizing a character as an actor. His early periods of cheesemaking were like “learning to cover other people’s music in the early years”, before you can start to make your own music. I ask him which song or album best defines that ‘adolescent’ period.

“I kind of like Jamiroquai! In a sense they’re kind of funky, kind of groovy, there’s jazz,” he answers with a laugh. “A lot of their songs came from jamming sessions but they’re all very technical high-level performers. You have to understand enough physics, chemistry and biology, and mathematics, and at the same time use that knowledge to create in artistic ways. Like what song can you create from 12 jamming instruments together.”

••

242 st.4B, soi 1 Wangtan village Moo 3 Sanpakwan, Hang Dong District, Chiang Mai 50230, Thailand

IG: @jartisann

Concerned by the numerous additives and preservatives in commercial cheese production, Dexter Lim started making his own for his kids to consume. The former property investor decided to leave the industry after 13 years, to turn his hobby into a full-time source of income during COVID. “I started playing with cheese at home in 2019, when I discovered cheese has a history that dates back 7,200 years. It had always been made in someone's kitchen. So, I figured why not in my house,” he said. His milk supplier was also having problems selling off his milk during the pandemic, which further spurred Dexter to create a business out of his cheesemaking.

D’artisan Cheese has amassed a huge variety of products in the short time he has been crafting cheeses – Willy Wonka-esque in the way he approaches flavour combinations - and shows no signs of slowing down. He’s currently in the midst of completing his 151st cheese variety, he tells me chuckling. “At any given time, you're probably looking at around 100 or more different types of hard cheese (in production). My staff help me to keep track of things.” In the heart of the bustling Kuala Lumpur metropole, Dexter has somehow defied the odds of