Sending a Cheese to a Five-Star Hotel

Can you hear it?

No, right? That is because it is completely quiet. No wind, no traffic noise, no machinery.

However, a few times a week, you can hear the sound of a man carefully taking down cheese after cheese, cutting a slice, tasting it, and spitting it out. This is Ib, a product specialist at Thise Dairy, who oversees the 14,000 cheeses aging in the Hjerm Limestone Mine. Ib loves cheese, so that is not why he spits it out; but every single week he tastes 150 cheeses, and even a cheese enthusiast like Ib cannot eat that much.

Ib is proud of his cheeses. Especially the mysterious "Fuldmåneost" (Full Moon Cheese), which is only made when there is—yes, a full moon—and which, during its seven months in the limestone mine, develops a surface that looks uncannily like the moon's dusty craters.

To a cheese, the Hjerm Limestone Mine is like a five-star hotel, Ib explains. The temperature is constant, and the humidity is just as stable. You might be able to replicate that with a good climate control system, but all the flora and microorganisms that give the cheeses so much flavor can only thrive in the darkness of the limestone mine.