From Himalayan chhurpi to award-winning Brie-style cheeses, India’s cheese culture is undergoing a remarkable transformation. Driven by changing tastes, rising incomes, and artisanal experimentation, a country once unfamiliar with cheese beyond processed slices is now rediscovering forgotten traditions and taking them to the world.

At the Mundial do Queijo do Brasil 2026, the fourth World Cheese Championship of Brazil held in April 2026, Indian artisanal cheeses made a spectacular appearance and won four prestigious prizes. Three of the winners were western-style Indian-made cheeses from Eleftheria, a Mumbai-based artisanal cheese brand spearheaded by Mausam Narang—Super Gold for their Gulmarg (Brie-style) cheese, Gold for their Brunost (Caramelised whey cheese), and Silver for Eleftheria Kaali Miri (Belper Knolle-style cheese). Additionally, Thenlay Nurboo of Nordic Farm, Leh, Ladakh, won the Gold for a cheese variety indigenous to South Asia: the soft yak chhurpi. Eleftheria, meanwhile, is not new to international recognition, having won the Silver Medal in the brown cheese category and the fourth-best cheese in the world at the World Cheese Awards in Spain (2021) and Norway (2023) for their Brunost. This is no mean feat, especially considering that Brunost is a Norwegian-style cheese. It is quite apparent that Indian artisanal cheese is having its moment and has arrived on the world cheese scene with a loud bang.