Buffalo milk comes to Dairy Flat

BY MICHELE ONG

New Zealand's dairy scene may soon have a new ingredient - water buffalo milk.

The Wills family - husband and wife Chris and Pam, daughter Annie Wills and son-in-law Phil Armstrong - run water buffaloes at their Dairy Flat farm.

They say water buffalo milk makes excellent yoghurt and cheese.

"The milk hasn’t got an aftertaste to it, unlike goats’ or cows’ milk," says Pam.

"But the cheese has quite a distinctive flavour.

"Buffalo dairy products are not very popular in New Zealand at the moment – not as popular as in European countries like Italy, or in Asia and India."

Pam says buffalo milk is very white and smooth, low in cholesterol and has a higher calcium content than the milk of cows, goats and sheep.

"Last season, we used the milk to make some brie and blue cheese, and this year we’re trialling mozzarella, and have bought a mozzarella machine for our factory," says Pam.

"The milk makes excellent mozzarella – I’ll say buffalo mozzarella is the only mozzarella to have."

Pam says rearing water buffaloes was something which "just happened" when they went to Italy two years
ago.

"We were in Italy deciding what to do when we got back to New Zealand.

"We bought a small farm in the Whangaripo Valley and had 17 cows and bulls imported from Australia."

Water buffaloes produce less milk than cows, but have a higher return because of the rich content.

Pam says the buffaloes are left to graze on pasture and hay, and are fed molasses as a treat.

They have 17 calves and adolescent water buffaloes, or "last year’s babies", as Pam puts it, at Dairy Flat.

All the calves are offspring of the first herd they brought from Australia.

The family’s produce is sold at the Matakana farmers market on Saturday mornings, and also supplied to restaurants.

Cheese making course:

 

Buffalo cheese may be included in the New Zealand Cheese School cheesemaking courses tomorrow and Saturday at the Dairy Flat Community Hall, corner State Highway 17 and Postman Rd.

Each one-day course costs $199. Tomorrow’s features feta/halloumi, greek yoghurt, quark and ricotta. Saturday’s course covers blue, ricotta, mascarpone, greek yoghurt and quark.

For more information, visit www.newzealandcheese
school.co.nz.

- © Fairfax NZ News