KEY POINTS:
When Wyatt Creech was deputy prime minister 10 years ago, who'd have thought people would one day be queueing to check out the smell of his sweaty socks.
Well, okay, it's not actually his pongy foot-gear attracting attention but the rich sweaty-sock aroma of the crumbly blue cheese produced by the Kaimai Cheese Company, of which he is chairman of directors.
The smell may be disconcerting to novices but if you're a blue cheese fan - and I am - it's a signal that the taste is fantastic.
This particular l'odour des chaussettes, along with a lot of other foodie smells, is to be found in the headquarters of the newly opened cheese company in Waharoa, a settlement you may not have noticed as you zipped down the long empty straights of State Highway 27, via Matamata, avoiding the tangled roads around Hamilton and Tauranga.
My wife and I take that route a lot and after a couple of disastrous efforts to find a decent latte - well, we do live in Devonport - our stops at Waharoa have been limited to using the public toilets.
But now, keep your eyes peeled and about 7km north of Matamata you should notice a cluster of shops and houses under the shadow of a huge disused dairy complex, and that's Waharoa, best known as the home of Wiremu Tamihana, called the king-maker, who played a key role in the selection of Potatau te Wherowhero as the first Maori king.
Stay alert, because Kaimai Cheese's signage has yet to complete the bureaucratic maze and, at the northern end of the settlement, you'll notice what looks like one of those old concrete dairy factory buildings that used to process milk in almost every town in the land until dairy company amalgamation came along.
The building is actually brand new but it looks old - the company having quite deliberately chosen a traditional design and incorporated some of the huge oregon roof trusses and roof vents from the original Waharoa dairy factory built in 1886 - and inside it's all about olde worlde traditional handmade cheeses.
To further underline the emphasis on tradition, pride of place in the big open cafe area is taken by a wonderful 1947 John Deere tractor, resplendent in yellow and green. Creech's fellow director and former MP John Luxton apparently has plans to add a small museum of the history of dairying, and cheese-making, in the area.
Meanwhile, around the walls of the cafe are huge plate-glass windows which allow visitors to watch the cheese-making process in action.
When I was there they were making bocconcini, a soft, white, unripened cheese, originally from Naples. Cheese-maker Andrew Huxford was taking big handfuls of the newly formed cheese from a big steel setting tray and transforming it into the small white balls in which bocconcini is sold.
Later, I was able to try some bocconcini in the cafe's cheese tasting area and it was very mild, with a pleasant milky flavour, ideal for use in salads.
Through another window were racks of camembert ripening under the watchful eye of cheese-maker Philippe Aucher. Made in traditional French fashion and allowed to ripen naturally (unlike most of the camembert on sale here), this has been one of Kaimai's big successes, much of it being sold to the Francophiles in Noumea.
The camembert I tasted was still ripening but already had a pleasant mushroomy flavour and I'm sure that if you had the nerve to leave it past the use-by date it would be marvellously rich, runny and flavoursome.
Out the back, they were handwrapping - and I do mean wrapping by hand - wedges of creamy blue cheese ready for sale.
When I tried it, the creamy blue was smooth, rich and peppery, but even nicer was the crumbly blue, marvellously smelly, spicy and full of flavour. The cafe also allowed us to try a nice creamy brie, a tangy havarti, a lovely nutty emmental and a wonderfully flavoursome mature cheddar.
But it was the blue I really fancied, so for lunch I had a tasty blue cheese tart with salad, while my wife tried the camembert and bacon filo pocket. Both were yummy. My wife even gave top marks to the latte: "This is worth calling in for next time we come through Waharoa."
Afterwards we bought a nice wedge of the Kaimai crumbly blue cheese so Creech's sweaty sock aroma travelled north with us. I'm going to enjoy it tonight with a nice, fat merlot. Yum.
* The Kaimai Cheese Company is at 2 Hawes St, Waharoa, phone (07) 888 8490, or on the web at www.kaimai.co.nz.
