Last night I was at my friend Charlie's house and he had this weird cheese I had never seen before. It was called Brun-Uusto. We were going to try it, but we had a bunch of other cheese and tea, and we never got to it...

... the funny thing is I came into the Ugly Mug (in Ypsilanti, MI) and a customer had dropped off that same cheese. He said it was dipped in coffee in some places.

It felt like fate was calling me to try this cheese. But I wanted to give it justice. Miro was sure there was some way of preparing it beyond simply dipping it. In short the cheese deserved some research, and I'm glad I looked into it!

It turns out it is known more commonly as Leipäjuusto, and is a Finnish cheese (Go FINS!) but the coffee part is a Swedish invention. The Finnish folks apparently find this treatment of their cheese heretical.

I decided to go against my Finnish heritage and try the cheese in coffee... (sorry guys)

First I cut the cheese into 1 cm cubes... (About 6 of them)
Then I Put them in a cup and poured some fresh drip (I used an Ethiopian Sidamo) over it.
Then I let it sit for a few minutes.

Soon after I poured the coffee Oils began to rise to the surface of the coffee. They had a big effect on the taste of the coffee! It was not too good.
I decided it was time to try the cheese itself.... I stuck a fork into the coffee and pulled out a cube. It looked quite a bit different after being steeped. It was actually quite tasty. I gave Miro a taste too, and he also liked it, although he agreed it didn't do much for the coffee flavor!
If anyone knows of a coffee that works well with this let me know!

Note: the cheese was originally made from Reindeer Milk!! If anyone knows how to get their mits on this variety let me know!