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Cheese from Tibetan Plateau

Chura kampo / chura loenpachura kampo

After yak milk is soured and churned for butter, the buttermilk or skim milk is warmed with a little sour milk until curd forms, and the curd is drained in a basket or cloth bag. Eaten fresh and soft it is chura loenpa; shaped into pieces and dried hard in the sun and wind it becomes chura kampo, a herders' snack that keeps a long time.

Recipe

Chura kampo / chura loenpa, a photo from Wikimedia Commons
Photo: Clemensmarabu, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons
No fixed amounts recordedHerders' practice with no fixed recipe or amounts.
Buttermilk or skimmed yak milkLeft after the butter is churned; occasionally whole milk[fao-yak2003]
Sour milkA little is added to the warm milk to make it curdle[fao-yak2003]
Startera little sour milk is added to the warm milk

Total time across the recorded steps: 1 h – 4 h

Start
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What changes: Churning splits the soured milk into butter and buttermilk

Step 1 of 5
Churn the soured milk for butter
Time
1–4 h
Reported
Temperature
Not documented
Salt
None given
Acidity
Not documented

The butter is the main product; the buttermilk or skimmed milk left over makes the chura. Output: butter and buttermilk.

Flavour
Not documented
Texture
Not documented
Colour
Not documented

Microbes at work in this step

Not documented for this step.

Method

Measured measured in a studySet fixed by a specification or tested recipeReported one source reports itTypical a general value, not sourced for this fermentUnconfirmed not yet checked against a source

At a glance

After yak milk is soured and churned for butter, the buttermilk or skim milk is warmed with a little sour milk until curd forms, and the curd is drained in a basket or cloth bag. Eaten fresh and soft it is chura loenpa; shaped into pieces and dried hard in the sun and wind it becomes chura kampo, a herders' snack that keeps a long time. Made in 5 steps over 1 h – 4 h. The longest step, churn the soured milk for butter, takes 1–4 h (Wiener G 2003). Lactococcus, Lactobacillus and Acetobacter, the dominant bacteria in Tibetan qula samples and Lactobacillus, Acetobacter and Lactococcus, the dominant genera in qula from Gannan, Gansu do most of the fermenting.

Key numbers
Main step1–4 hReported[fao-yak2003]Churn the soured milk for butter
Temperature50–60 °CReported[fao-yak2003]Warm with sour milk until curd forms

What makes this one different

Chura is made from what is left after butter making, so it is lean, and it sets by souring and gentle heat instead of rennet. Tibetans keep both a soft fresh form and a rock-hard dried form; an FAO survey notes that Tibet makes a pliable form besides the hard chhurpi of Nepal and Bhutan.

Milk
Buttermilk or skimmed milk of yak, sometimes whole milk
Forms
Chura loenpa (fresh, soft) and chura kampo (dried, hard)
Composition
Dried residue about 55 % protein and 21 % lactose (FAO); half-dried residue 20–30 % water, sometimes 40 %

Related ferments

Variants

  • Chura loenpaThe fresh, soft curd, eaten like cottage cheese or cooked in dishes.
  • Chura kampoThe dried, hard form.
  • Whole-milk churaMade from whole milk; dries yellow and brittle instead of white and hard.

Safety

Drying is the preservation step; hard dried pieces keep because little water is left. An FAO survey says soft Himalayan curd keeps only 2–3 days in warm weather, or up to 2 weeks in the cold, so fresh chura should be eaten soon or dried.

History and sources

Every number is labelled with how it is known. How this atlas is made

In China, butter is the principal product of yak milk. The FAO survey says herdsmen make milk residue from the skimmed milk left over, keep the half-dried residue as a ration when they are out with their animals, and mix the dried residue with butter to make zanba, also called tsampa.

  1. [fao-yak2003] Wiener G., Han J., Long R. 2003, The Yak, 2nd edition, chapter 10 Products from yak and their utilization, FAO Regional Office for Asia and the Pacific, RAP Publication 2003/06book
  2. [fao1990] FAO 1990, The technology of traditional milk products in developing countries, FAO Animal Production and Health Paper 85, section 7.6 Himalayan region - Nepal and Bhutanbook
  3. [huang2025] Huang X. et al. 2025, Exploring the rare and abundant bacterial community structures and their metabolic differences in various types of qula cheese, Food Research International 222:117633 (abstract)paper
  4. [li2023] Li A. et al. 2023, Tibetan Plateau yak milk, a comprehensive review of nutritional values, health benefits, and processing technology, Food Chemistry X 20:100919paper
  5. [wp] Wikipedia, Chura kampo and Chura loenpa (names only)wiki