The Sunday Times: June 1st 2003
Good Caerphilly cheese was getting scarce in Wales until a few years ago; now it's experiencing a revival. Gorwydd Caerphilly is deliciously creamy and smooth, with a lovely firm texture.

The Times : January 4th 2003
Gorwydd Caerphilly; a favourite at the Pharmacy has a superb, long rich and lemony aftertaste. Most Caerphillys are sold very fresh after two or three weeks, but this is matured for ten weeks.

Maugan Trethowan, brother and business partner of Todd, describes their cheese as having "a fresh, lemony taste, slightly salty and well-rounded; it lasts in your mouth", which is better than I could have phrased it. Todd and two enthusiastic employees turn out 114 8lb cheeses every week, all made by hand, from their farm tucked under the Cambrian mountains in Ceredigion.

So far, so authentic. They use traditional methods to a traditional recipe to produce a traditional Caerphilly of the type lugged underground by Welsh miners in generous, cake-like wedges. It's a surprise, then, to discover that the gold medal-winning Gorwydd Caerphilly business is all of four years old, and that the brothers (whisper it) aren't actually Welsh. Maugan joined the fledgling family firm only two years ago, turning his back on a career in archaeology to get his hands stuck into the curds and whey business. "I'd been involved in helping out before," he says, "so it was the logical step to join full-time. I was enjoying archaeology, but the prospect of my own business, making an award-winning cheese, was a challenge." Besides, he says, the two aren't so different: "I always enjoyed the physical side of archaeology, the digging, the hands-on work, being out and about. Cheesemaking is very similar. There's the same sense of satisfaction."

Founding partner Todd had solid reasons for choosing the Welsh countryside to try his hand at making a Caerphilly, though. The Trethowans have their links with the country, admittedly via Cornwall, but, more important, after 10 years of working with cheesemakers the length of Britain, Todd had realised that Welsh-made Caerphilly was something of an endangered species. A former Neal's Yard Dairy employee himself, he'd been sent out to learn life at the stickier end of the business, and found himself happier amid the rennet. Armed with the Caerphilly recipe divulged to him by Duckett (with "certain modifications"), Todd decided to go west.

Ask why a Welsh Caerphilly should be better than a Wherever Caerphilly, and the reasons come thick and fast. A territorial cheese such as Caerphilly thrives in certain environmental conditions - rainfall (presumably lots of), mould and soil types, humidity - which Todd found in abundance at Gorwydd Farm, wedged between the shadow of the Cambrians and the banks of the Teifi. Pitching up here meant a ready supply of real Welsh milk from real Welsh cows belonging to real Welsh farmers - who, unsurprisingly, are thrilled at the revival of the dairy tradition on their doorstep. "Our local ties are important to us," Maugan says. "The farmers are pleased that we've decided to do this here."

Help was also forthcoming from various Welsh business agencies, keen to see Caerphilly re-established in its homeland. In an EC Objective One area (categorised as being in need of financial assistance to reach European levels of investment and employment), the Trethowans are doing their bit to keep the area's dairy heritage healthy. And, despite plans to boost production of their Caerphilly, they have no intention of moving out of Ceredigion.

"We're definitely staying," says Maugan. "We've got a good system, with enthusiastic people who care about the cheese. We've no plans to go global." So, despite ferrying their cheeses to all corners of the kingdom, and even over the waters to America, the team at Gorwydd Farm will continue to cut the curd and texture the cheese with minimal mechanical intervention, and to set up stall at London's Borough Market every weekend to sell big wedges of Welsh heritage to the vacuum-packed Cheddar generation.

And my description of the Gorwydd Caerphilly to a member of the aforementioned generation? I could laud the creamy outside (known as the "breakdown"), which changes subtly in flavour as the cheese matures, or enthuse about the firmer, flakier centre, which has more of a kick. But, most of all, it tastes like cheese - hand-textured, hand-moulded, hands-on cheese.

Claire Phillips