Langtang Emmentaler

The series Nepal Made profiles Nepali products and the people who make them possible. 

In the lap of Langtang lie misty meadows that are carpeted with alpine flowers during the monsoon. It was here that Gyalbu Tamang (pictured, right) spent his childhood accompanying his father Pasang Norbu to high pastures, to milk nak and make cheese.

Norbu himself was taught to produce Emmentaler cheese by two Swiss experts in the 1950s. Switzerland and Nepal are marking the 70th anniversary of diplomatic ties this year, and the cheese plant in Kyangjin was one of the first the Swiss were involved in. 

Langtang had surplus milk, and the idea was to turn it into cheese to raise nutrition levels.

“The Swiss were very hard-working, and were not used to the laid back attitude of Nepalis,” remembers Gyalbu Tamang, now 50. “The children in Langtang were scared of the tall blonde foreigners, but I got along with them.”

Gyalbu remembers sleeping outdoors with his father, under the stars and gazing at Langtang Lirung luminescent in the moonlight. After the milk was boiled, he helped carry it down in 40 litre churns to Kyangjin for processing. 

The plant was handed over to the state-run Dairy Development Corporation (DDC). Norbu Lama retired, but cheese making was too ingrained in him. So he bought a dozen yaks and Gyalbu helped him sell the milk. At 18, Gyalbu joined the cheese plant, and 32 years later, he is still there – now manager.

“I had learnt everything from my father, so it was easy for me,” Gyalbu recalls. “Trekking boomed in Langtang and there was high demand for cheese. It raised the income of farmers.”

2015 EARTHQUAKE 

But all that came crashing down just before noon on 25 April 2015 when the earthquake triggered an avalanche that buried Langtang  village. More than 300 people, many of them trekkers, were killed.

“My father was grazing yaks, and we found him five days later, thrown off by the avalanche. My mother was buried in the ruins of her home,” Gyalbu says. Fortunately, his wife and three children in Kyangjin were safe in their damaged house.

Twenty-seven herders and 400 yaks also perished. The cheese plant was flattened. Even before the disaster, an ageing population, out-migration, and better education meant that fewer Langtangpa were interested in cheese-making. The DDC’s mismanagement also took its toll, and at Rs80 / litre, it was not feasible to herd yaks anymore.

The Swiss stepped in again to help rebuild the plant on condition that the price of milk be raised. The DDC agreed to pay up to Rs110/litre depending on fat content, and that price has remained the same. 

Gyalbu Tamang was in Kathmandu this week, trying again to convince the DDC to raise the price of milk to make cheese-making a worthwhile occupation for the younger generation. 

There are only three yak ranches left and the numbers of yak, nak and dzo have shrunk. In its heyday, Langtang used to produce 5,000kg of cheese per year. Today, it is down to 800kg. The cheese is sold in Kathmandu for about Rs2,000 per kg, but the plant has no savings to upgrade its 80-year-old equipment.

“We are on our own, there is not much help from the government or Langtang people overseas,” laments Gyalbu. “I do not know what the future holds, but I will keep making cheese as long as there is milk, and as long as I am able.”