Cow cheese
Cows are big animals — the average mature dairy cow weighs over 1,000 pounds — and they produce a lot of milk. That milk is considered the most versatile for cheese, accounting for the greatest range of styles of all the animals. Cow's milk also has the widest range of hues, which offer clues on how the animal is being raised.

Unlike goats and sheep, cows do not absorb the beta carotene in the grass they eat. It gets passed through their systems and straight into the milk. So cows raised on fresh grass end up producing cheese with a golden butter-yellow hue. That rich color is often a good indication of quality: Cows that are raised on grain do not have as much beta carotene going through their systems and into the milk.

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"Anyone could go to the grocery store and pull the spectrum of white cow's milk cheese to golden cow's milk cheese," Chubbuck says. "I would bet $50 if we researched the scale of production or commitment to artisanal practices, the very white cow's milk cheeses would be more industrial and the very yellow would be more artisanal — and probably more expensive."

Goat cheese
Goat milk is lower in fat with a lighter feel than other cheeses. When it's formed into fresh styles, like chèvre, it takes on a tangy flavor, with bright lemon and citrus notes that turn more toward citrus pith with a bit of age. Goat cheese is more prone to "barnyard-y" flavors that resemble the animal — in a good way.

Unlike cows, which absorb no beta carotene, and sheep, which absorb a little, goats are great at absorbing beta carotene, which gets converted into vitamin A in their milk, lending it a crisp, white hue. "Goat cheese is pretty much universally going to have a snowy white color," Chubbuck says.

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Sheep cheese
Sheep are smaller than cows and not as hardy as goats, and often require hand-milking and time-intensive grooming, which drives up the cost of their cheeses.

But there's a reason buyers are willing to pay the price. Sheep's milk cheese is high in fat with a richer, rounder, and heavier mouthfeel even after aging. Much of that is due to its lanoline qualities, a source of vitamin E produced on their skin to keep the wool from getting overly brittle or wet. "Lanolin has a very particular aroma," Chubbuck says. "It's a little nutty in the sense of raw almonds, a little waxy like high-quality beeswax, and a hint of gaminess with a sheepy note to it."

That wide range of flavor is present in all sheep's cheese from rarer soft varieties, like ricotta salata, to hard and blue styles.

Right in between goat and cow in terms of beta carotene absorption, all sheep's cheeses boast a rich ivory hue.

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Water buffalo
Most famously used in buffalo mozzarella, water buffalo has the highest fat of all the milk types. It's hard to find in the states, but there are cheeses other than buffalo mozzarella made from their milk, including other fresh cheeses and some aged varieties.

Cheese texture and style
A cheese's texture is impacted by a combination of factors such as the pH and acidity levels from the cheesemaking process, individual choices made by the cheesemaker, and natural proteolysis, the breakdown of proteins into smaller polypeptides or amino acids, as it ages. "There's a spectrum of really soft spreadable cheese to really hard crumbly cheese and within that spectrum there's going to be a lot of nuance," Chubbuck says. "I like to think about it in three different big picture textures."

Soft cheese
Made and intended to be consumed quickly, soft cheeses have a higher moisture content. It's the kind you can easily cut with a spoon and smear onto a cracker or piece of bread. There is a broad range of textural variation in this category, spanning from buttery mascarpone and velvety fresh goat cheese to creamy surface-ripened Brie and custardy washed-rind Époisses de Bourgogne. "When I say soft, these are things you're going to have a hard time slicing," says Chubbuck. "They typically tend to be smaller format. Some are larger and you might slice a wedge, but you want to just carve into it and slather it onto things."

Here's a breakdown of soft cheese styles:

Fresh cheese: These unaged cheeses have no rind on the outside, so they have a shorter shelf life of about seven to 14 days. They should always be pure white and milky fresh with some citrusy tartness or subtle butteriness depending on the milk. This includes Mexican queso fresco, feta, chèvre, buffalo mozzarella, fresh mozzarella, fromage frais, and other soft spreadable cheeses.

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