With summer in its final weeks, the season for preparing Tylliria’s local halitzia cheese has arrived.

The cheese, so named for its likeness to pebbles, which are also called “halitzia” in the Cypriot Greek dialect, is prepared with milk collected by shepherds during the summer months. Likewise, the cheese is known as “helik” in Turkish.

This is because the sheep which are milked to produce the cheese graze in fields where wheat has recently been harvested, as, as local cultural heritage expert Anna Tselepou told the Cyprus News Agency (CNA) on Tuesday, the quality of milk produced under these conditions is “excellent”.

She added that other characteristics of the cheese include the holes on “pebbles”’ inside, the acidic taste, and that the cheese can be “kept in the refrigerator for a long time”.

Additionally, she said the practice of making halitzia has been passed down from generation to generation, and that one woman in the village of Pigainia, known as “Mrs Elpida”, has been making the cheese every year for 70 years.

As for how it is consumed, she said it is eaten “in small pieces in a salad or on their own with bread after having been sprinkled with olive oil and oregano”.

“In recent years, we have also seen attempts by modern chefs to use it in other cuisine as well,” she added.

She also pointed out that the European Commission had last year approved the addition of halitzia to its Protected Geographical Indications (PGI) register.

She said the move is “a distinction which enshrines the value of our country’s products”.

With this in mind, she added that “the seasonality and locality of Cypriot products is the only way to make them competitive, to stand out, and give extra value to the culinary culture of our country.”

The European Commission had described the cheese as “a soft to semi-hard white cheese from Cyprus, made from heat-treated fresh goat’s milk, rennet, and salt”.

“It is matured in salted whey for at least 40 days and has a soft to semi-hard and quite crumbly texture with characteristic holes of different sizes and shapes. The cheese has a fresh taste, with a lemony and slightly salty aroma,” they added.

They went on to describe the appearance of the cheese, saying “due to the characteristic shape of the cheese, its pure white colour, and the irregular holes inside, which give them a rough appearance, like stones polished smooth by the action of seawater, the chunks of halitzia resemble large white pebbles found by the sea.”

They added, “expertise in the production of halitzia is often passed down from one generation to the next, and to this day it is still produced in small household businesses or in the homes of inhabitants of Tilliria.”

Pyrgos mukhtar Nikos Kleanthous had reacted with delight to the news of the European Commission’s recognition of the cheese in December, saying “this opens doors to new opportunities for employment, for small businesses, and for growth in the farming sector, regarding things like the production of milk.”

He added that following the receipt of European Union recognition, the village has been emboldened to seek new funding from the government to subsidise and expand the sector and help economic growth in the region.

The Nicosia Regional Tourism Board (Etap) were also pleased, saying the cheese “is recognised, as it should be, as a quality and unique product directly linked to the geographical area of Tylliria”.

They added that they are “proceeding with the planning of strategic actions to highlight the culinary heritage and sustainable tourism development of the Tylliria region”.