Murray's Cave Aged Limited Umbra
$19.00 / 4 oz Each
- Pasteurized
- Vegetarian Rennet
- Age: 3-6 Weeks
- Cow Milk
- by Murray's Cheese Caves
- United States
- ApproachableAdventurous
- SoftHard
Like day and night, Umbra is a study in contrast. A duo of cheeses: one with a lunar grey rind, infused with herbal tea; one bright and sunshiny, sprinkled with lemon zest. Our caves team gets the curds (and inspiration) from Philadelphia’s innovative Perrystead Dairy. They’re hand-formed into rounds and aged until creamy. Thistle rennet’s unmistakable tangy, vegetal notes are balanced by citrus and warm spice. Bring some imagination to your brunch board with this duo and some V Smiley Cherry Fennel Jam.
“You can really nerd out with this duo: the ashed rind, the thistle rennet, the contrasting flavors. But it’s also just truly delicious and so visually striking. My favorite bite is the tea-infused cheese with Wildwood’s Fennel Caramel bar.”
Cultured Whole Cow's Milk, Vegetable Rennet (from Thistles), Salt, Herbal Tea (Licorice Root, Cinnamon, Cardamom, Ginger, Orange, European Coriander, Black Pepper, Cloves), Lemon Peel
Allergens: Milk
- Umbra is an innovative collaboration with Perrystead Dairy, an urban micro-creamery in Philadelphia focused on creating original American cheeses.
- Umbra is Latin for shadow and is also a term associated with the eclipse. Our first batch of this cheese started aging the day of the solar eclipse in April 2024.
- Perrystead sends us fresh cow’s milk curds, the same ones used to make their Intergalactic, coagulated with thistle rennet.
- Using rennet from the cardoon thistle, a relative of the artichoke, to coagulate milk is a hallmark of Portuguese and Spanish cheesemaking. It’s fairly unique in American cheesemaking.
- Half of the curds are mixed with herbal tea (made from licorice root, cinnamon, cardamom, ginger, cloves and more warming flavors), hand-formed into cylindrical buttons, and rolled in ash.
- The plain curds are shaped and left un-ashed. This is the first Cave Aged cheese for which we’ve used bulk curd, allowing us to add cultures and hand-form the cheeses.
- The rounds begin aging in our drying room before finishing in our Bloomy Rind Cave, for a total of three weeks of aging.
- The brainy, wrinkled texture of the rind, known as a geo rind, is formed by the yeast Geotrichum candidum as it ages.
- Before being packaged, the unashed cheese is sprinkled with lemon zest.
- Thistle rennet cheeses have a distinct tangy, vegetal flavor. Here, it’s balanced by the bright citrus of the lemon peel and the warming herbaceous notes of the tea.
- At Murray’s Cheese Caves in Queens, New York, our experts age and mature cheeses to perfection, creating unique products that are exclusive to Murray’s.
- We built our caves to enhance the quality of our products, as well as to honor the craft of cheesemakers across the globe. The practice of aging cheese, known in French as affinage, was relatively rare in the United States when we built our first set of caves in 2004.
- The cheeses that mature in our caves are crafted in a variety of ways, which are reflected on their labels, described below.
- Cave Aged Original cheeses are produced from a Murray’s original recipe—we have a hand in every step of the cheesemaking process.
- Cave Aged Reserve cheeses are made in collaboration with some of our favorite cheesemakers. They send us unaged wheels, and we use unique aging techniques to produce something completely new.
- Cave Aged Limited cheeses are born out of our constant innovation and experimentation, only available for a limited time.
- Cheeses in the Cave Aged category are aged in our caves with methods that replicate the treatment they would’ve received from their original producer. This category is largely populated by bloomy rind cheeses that don’t fare well in transport.
- Murray's operates four caves, designed to ensure that each cheese matures in its ideal environment—the Bloomy Rind Cave, Natural Rind Cave, Washed Rind Cave, and Alpine Cave.
- The temperature, humidity, and microbial activity in each cave are controlled and monitored with the greatest precision.
