Tongola was started in the late ’90s when Hans Stuz and Esther Hausermann left Switzerland for the hills overlooking the Huon River in Southern Tasmania. They purchased 16 acres and set about gradually transforming the land into a home for themselves and their small herd of Swiss Toggenburg does. They slowly and gradually built their herd numbers, dairy and cheesery from the ground.
Hans and Esther had spent many summers in the Swiss alps, living in tongolas (little huts), where they would graze the farmers’ cows on the alpage (summer pasture) and turn the milk into cheese – cheese being much easier to transport than milk, with a much longer shelf-life. The skills they developed over the years came with them to Tasmania, where they set about turning fresh goat milk into swiss-style cheeses. And so Tongola was born.
Fast forward many years, and the demand for Tongola Cheese outgrew Hans and Esther’s capacity. In order for Tongola to remain viable, something had to change. Around the same time, Iain and Kate Field had made contact with Hans and Esther to enquire about purchasing some goat does in order to start their own cheese enterprise at Leap Farm. 18 Toggie kids were purchased and Leap Farm got its first herd. Fast-froward 2 years later; the girls had their own kids and milk was being produced for Tongola on Leap Farm. As Iain delivered the milk to Tongola he became the junior bucket-washer and took the opportunity to learn the skills and tricks to make Tongola Cheese. As the demand for Tongola cheese has increased, the natural evolution was for Tongola to move to Leap Farm.
In 2011, Iain and Kate Field made the decision to leave the big city and seek a more simple life (little did they know), returning to Tasmania to start making cheese. But of course, to make cheese, you need milk, and the only way that they felt they could guarantee quality, happy milk was to run a herd of goats and milk them. They purchased 300 acres of land in the stunning Bream Creek region of South-eastern Tasmania, populated it with cows in calf and acquired the first 18 kid does from Hans and Esther.
Iain and Kate purchased and moved to Leap Farm in mid-2012. Since then there have been many lessons learnt (often more than once) and an amazing new skill set that has been acquired. Not to mention 2 extras: Hamish and Zoé (not named after the cheese, more an accidental coincidence) that arrived, always during massive infrastructure works!
Our cheese is handmade, on farm, from the milk of our Swiss Toggenburg goats. We focus on producing a small selection of traditional, European-style cheeses. As with the seasonal nature of our milking, so is our cheese making, which means that you can only find our cheeses between October and June.
Tongola Cheese can be purchased directly from us at Hobart’s Farm Gate Market on the 2nd and 4th Sundays of the month, at the Bream Creek Farmers Market on the 1st Sunday of the month, or contact us via Facebook, Instagram or email. Retail outlets include the Bruny Island Cheese outlet located on Argyle St in North Hobart, Hill St Grocer (West Hobart) and the Cygnet Garden Larder. If you’re “up north” you can find out cheese at Alps and Amici.
https://www.tongola.com.au/