When we were spending a short time in the town of Paia we ate at one restaurant twice, Flatbread pizza. We love pizza but there were other reasons that made this joint so great, many of their menu items feature local and organic products. And one of those products was a mild and creamy goat cheese from Surfing Goat Dairy. Luckily, this goat dairy was just a twenty minute drive away.
Surfing Goat Dairy is located in lower Kula of Maui’s Upcountry and has been producing gourmet goat cheeses for nine years.
We arrived at the dairy and were immediately struck by the six newborn goats, all under five days old. Though the sign above their pen instructed us not to let them suck on our fingers, there was nothing said about refraining from petting the babies. That’s good because I can’t resist touching things. Unless it is an ostrich. Ostrich bite.
While some goats where enjoying being stroked, the others were diligently practicing standing on the surf board. Learning to surf must be on their bucket list too.
After prying myself away from the baby goats, we took a $10 dairy tour that was brief, but a wealth of goaty information.
For $5 more you can also milk a goat, but that tour wasn’t starting until later in the day. Shucks.
We learned that you won’t find many male goats on the Surfing Goat Dairy because they are all sold, besides a select few that they use for mating. They only keep the high-milk producing females and just over a hundred were on the farm that day.
This goat dairy produces about 40-60 pounds of cheese each day, some of which you can taste and purchase at the end of the tour. It is a relatively small production facility, where the owner can be seen creating cheese on most days.
They also offered a large selection of creamy goat cheese stuffed truffles with flavors like Lilikoi, Kona coffee and Tahitian Lime.
We bought one coconut truffle. I am a sucker for coconut. It was rich with barely a hint of goat cheese flavor. I wish we would have gotten another.
